5

Out of her womb of pain my mother spat me

into her ill-fitting harness of despair

into her deceits

where anger re-conceived me

piercing my eyes like arrows

pointed by her nightmare

of who I was not

becoming.

10

15

20

25

Going away

she left in her place

iron maidens to protect me

and for my food

the wrinkled milk of legend

where I wandered through the lonely rooms of afternoon

wrapped in nightmares

from the Orange and Red and Yellow

Purple and Blue and Green

Fairy Books

where white witches ruled

over the empty kitchen table

and never wept

or offered gold

nor any kind enchantment

for the vanished mother

of a black girl.

1

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Working graveyard shift at a 7-11

in Seattle, making minimum

everything, when I got robbed

by a guy with a pistol.  Now

I was thinking as it happened

thinking the gun ain’t loaded

everything is under control

this guy don’t want to hurt me

he understands I ain’t got much

more than he does.  I got

an old car, high rent, even

the same dark skin as his

and my best shirt is the one

I have to wear to work

with 7-11 stitched on my chest.

But the robber takes me back

into the cooler, makes me

kneel on the cold floor

with my hands on my head/ my back turned to him/ and I wet

my pants when he puts the pistol/ up against my skull/ I keep

thinking/ I’m going to die/ between the broken eggs/ and the

expired milk/ and I keep thinking/ I’ll make a move/ on the

robber/ and tear the gun from him/ and I keep thinking/ I’d

rather die fighting/ and/ I’d rather die brave and crazy/

but the robber laughs, runs

out of the store, out

of the rest of my life

and leaves me to the police

and their sketch artist.

It takes hours to describe

the robber, detail by detail

the color of his hair, eyes, skin

his height, weight, age

all approximated, estimated.

After all that work

the sketch artist asks

if I’ve remembered everything

perfectly, if I’m sure

I’ve described the robber

40

exactly as he looked, exactly

as he lived and breathed

and I tell the sketch artist

45

“Yes, I could never forget”

and then he shows me his sketch

shows me my memory, my vision

and the face on the page

is the same face I always see

when I look in my mirror

50

in those last seconds

before I walk out the door

and leave home for work.

Can I tell you now

that I’ve dreamed of your hair

in a good way?

5

I’ve dreamed your hair

could save us all.

10

Its length is a rope

for climbing ivory walls.

Its strength is a knot

for holding Skins together.

Its smell is the smoke

from the powwow campfire.

Its shine is the moonlight

and its shine makes you

15

20

the first Indian on the moon.

The first Indian on the moon

is a woman.

The first Indian on the moon

is you

and if my dream is long

as your hair

and if my dream is strong

as your hair

25

then maybe you can let all your hair down

find me somewhere alone on earth

and maybe I can reach up and take hold.

Maybe you can let all your hair down

and maybe I can reach up and take hold.

Maybe you can let all your hair down

and maybe I can reach up and take hold

30

35

40

and although the whites say

you can’t hear anything in space

I say we’ll hear each other breathe

I say we’ll hear each other move

I say we’ll hear each other whisper

I love you

and I will say it in my own language

I’ll say it in the little piece

of my own language that I know

and I’ll say it like it’s the last thing I’ll ever say:

quye han-xm=enc, quye han-xm=enc, quye han-xm=enc.

5

10

15

20

25

Miss Murphy in first grade

wrote its name in chalk

across the board and told us

it was roaring down the stormtracks

of the Milky Way at frightful speed

and if it wandered off its course

and smashed into the earth

there’d be no school tomorrow.

A red-bearded preacher from the hills

with a wild look in his eyes

stood in the public square

at the playground’s edge

proclaiming he was sent by God

to save every one of us,

even the little children.

“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,

waving his hand-lettered sign.

At supper I felt sad to think

that it was probably

the last meal I’d share

with my mother and my sisters;

but I felt excited too and scarcely touched my plate.

So mother scolded me

and sent me early to my room.

The whole family’s asleep

except for me.  They never heard me steal

into the stairwell hall and climb

the ladder to the fresh night air.

30

35

Look for me, Father, on the roof

of the red brick building

at the foot of Green Street—

that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.

I’m the boy in the white flannel gown

sprawled on this coarse gravel bed

searching the starry sky,

waiting for the world to end.

5

She is the woman hanging from the 13^th floor

window.  Her hands are pressed white against the

concrete moulding of the tenement building.  She

hangs from the 13^th floor window in east Chicago,

with a swirl of birds over her head.  They could

be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her.

10

15

She thinks she will be set free.

The woman hanging from the 13^th floor window

on the east side of Chicago is not alone.

She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos,

and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest.

She is her mother’s daughter and her father’s son.

She is several pieces between the two husbands

she has had.  She is all the women of the apartment

building who stand watching her, watching themselves.

When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down

plates in warm wood rooms.  It was in the farther

north and she was the baby then.  They rocked her.

20

25

She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of

herself.  It is a dizzy hole of water and the rich

live in tall glass houses at the edge of it.  In some

places Lake Michigan speaks softly, here, it just sputters

and butts itself against the asphalt.  She sees

other buildings just like hers.  She sees other

women hanging from many-floored windows

counting their lives in the palms of their hands

and in the palms of their children’s hands.

30

She is the woman hanging from the 13^th floor window

on the Indian side of town.  Her belly is soft from

her children’s births, her worn levis swing down below

her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart.

She is dangling.

35

40

The woman hanging from the 13^th floor hears voices.

They come to her in the night when the lights have gone

dim.  Sometimes they are little cats mewing and scratching

at the door, sometimes they are her grandmother’s voice,

and sometimes they are gigantic men of light whispering

to her to get up, to get up, to get up.  That’s when she wants

to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able

to fall back into dreams.

45

and the woman hanging from the 13^th floor window

hears other voices.  Some of them scream out from below

for her to jump, they would push her over.  Others cry softly

from the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather

them into their arms.  They would help her, like themselves.

But she is the woman hanging from the 13^th floor window,

and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her

own skin, her own thread of indecision.

50

55

She thinks of Carlos, of Margaret, of Jimmy.

She thinks of her father, and of her mother.

She thinks of all the women she has been, of all

the men.  She thinks of the color of her skin, and

of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines.

She thinks of moonlight nights, and of cool spring storms.

Her mind chatters like neon and northside bars.

She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonelinesses that have folded

her up like death, discordant, without logical and

beautiful conclusion.  Her teeth break off at the edges.

She would speak.

60

65

The woman hangs from the 13^th floor window crying for

the lost beauty of her own life.  She sees the

sun falling west over the grey plane of Chicago.

She thinks she remembers listening to her own life

break loose, as she falls from the 13^th floor

window on the east side of Chicago, or as she

climbs back up to claim herself again.

5

with its neck broken in two

            places has outlived

the others.  It sees the floor,

            plays to the audience

of motes[1] its head deflects.

            It’s so still.

10

it’s a sundial.  Across the room

            the three good ones

cluck in the sunlight.

            Their water darkens

though to us it looks

            clear.  Around them

15

the room decides itself,

            rip-tide at my feet

called forever, now,

            a reason for stopping

where I do.  You are

            elsewhere

20

who picked them with me,

            or, rather, watched me

rip them from the bed.

            When I broke this one,

sliding it through my palm

            like time till it snapped,

25

I wanted to say, I am

            careful, this is

great love, this catch

            as my thumb comes

too close.  You looked away

            like the owl

30

who snapped against my windowpane.

            He dove into my darker

daylight for a world

            with a boundary

so you know when you’ve entered.

            Inside, we keep turning

35

up splinters.  I think of you

            watching me, seeing

what’s here slipping out of

            what it represents.

I think of what you

            have to overlook

40

to see me.  Will the dust

            leave a flower

shaped like these yellow

            wings where it

has not fallen because they

            have not fallen?

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words

 

Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope—
Good morning.