BROKEN STARS
No Se Permite Hol Gazanear (No Loitering)
1
This morning, you gave me a ride
to the therapist, a man
whose Navajo language is medicine
Before the Land was stolen,
before laws were enacted,
the shadows migrating north on San Mateo
were men and women whose brown-red skin
glowed, whose language was waters
grasses, spoke to animals who have deserted us
2
A man pushing a shopping cart down the
middle of the sidewalk, always dark
baggy, dirty, and smelly clothing.
I am one of them waiting for the bus.
blue tattoos on necks and falling
like broken stars from eyelids onto cheekbones.
swollen red faces, splatter painted hiking shoes.
impermanence reeking everywhere.
makeshift tents from when theyh had a salary,
a woman, a job.
UNHOUSED AND UNHARRIED
1
I understood, I was
unhoused. I felt eyes
examining my shoes. Am I
one of those that escaped,
or ignoramt masses,
believing in masters
who never existed.
Here, we are bleeding.
No one stops to offer help.
Tomorrow, the dried blood
will be confused with syrupy
stickiness of grape soda.
Sounds so loudbright it blasts
past me in a blur.
How much does a shadow cost?
2
I lost my voice somewhere
in my childhood Washington dc
the city I was born in, what can I say?
I know the truths about America
that continue to go unheeded:
the vision has already been of
a dark night looking forward
when we were wind when we were nothing
when we were wind.
What does [see attachment) feel like,
that beautiful fragile butterfly
batting its wings. I have
learned so many languages,
each more promising than the last:
No one has the answer,
NO ONE, the mysterious
number beyond numbers
3
I demand absolute freedom of being
where you have lived
I have not lived, except
once inside your skin
4
am I safe to live, here
die here
lie here
?
Why does my freedom
always seem so electric
and yours so ordinary.
5
What is the freedom of mirrors,
the freedom from approximation
and half-truths.
I want to find
the Infallible, Incorruptible
inside myself. I want to taste
of that white wine light, light
through lime leaves on the fig trees
the figs so sweet, pink, inviting
the center of the world is the color
of raspberry, but is so bitter
everything else is in fact its opposite
6
The time is so short
you pull out
your note pad and I pull out mine
we are racing
against a chronometer we’ve never seen –
the one that really matters
how often do daffodils
irises wisteria red yucca
have to bloom before your
recognize Spring?
How does One walk into the Wind
and not know Oya?