You may have seen him on The History Channel
decked out in turquoise and a silver bolo
tie, calling himself a Zuni elder, a medicine
man, talking about how our kachinas are
star people, our ancestors were ancient
astronauts, and I can't swallow
this New Age bullshit anymore, but then I
remember my nightmare where my poems pour
out of the eyes and ears and nose of every other Indian
on the rez, and when the torrential flood of pages stops
and all of the red-soaked papers are mopped up, I realize
none of the blood in the ink is mine, and I wonder if he and I
are the same kind of sellouts, spinning lies, practicing black
magic for hipsters and hippies, and maybe he is even more real
than I am, because at least getting kicked out of a medicine
society is more Indian than never knowing the taste
of your native tongue in your mouth, never dancing
when it's time to dance. And I fear years from now I will still be
a lonely little Indian boy meeting a lonely little white-skinned girl who
says with the utmost sincerity sparkling in her Milky Way
eyes that she is an alien, reminding me of when I saw
lights flying in the sky above the summer rain dances
one hot evening when I was ten, and the impossibility of describing
how that singing is inscribed into my skin in a secret way
so that I can never pronounce it. And I tell her
with the utmost sincerity in my burning ears
that I'm an alien, too, and suddenly the foreignness
of the world makes sense, and in my heart I know
my lies are true, and the whitest little girl in the world
braids her fingers into mine as we stare into the shimmering stars,
and she sees her future and NASA satellites in low-earth orbit
and the arc of the International Space Station carving out borders,
and I see my past and an Arizona lake reflected in the waves of gravity.
---
This poem was inspired by an email from my mother about our distant relative Clifford Mahooty, who has appeared on Ancient Aliens, who has been disowned by his family and medicine society for his unconventional conspiracy theories, and my own fears of writing about my experiences as an Indian who did not grow up on the reservation.
decked out in turquoise and a silver bolo
tie, calling himself a Zuni elder, a medicine
man, talking about how our kachinas are
star people, our ancestors were ancient
astronauts, and I can't swallow
this New Age bullshit anymore, but then I
remember my nightmare where my poems pour
out of the eyes and ears and nose of every other Indian
on the rez, and when the torrential flood of pages stops
and all of the red-soaked papers are mopped up, I realize
none of the blood in the ink is mine, and I wonder if he and I
are the same kind of sellouts, spinning lies, practicing black
magic for hipsters and hippies, and maybe he is even more real
than I am, because at least getting kicked out of a medicine
society is more Indian than never knowing the taste
of your native tongue in your mouth, never dancing
when it's time to dance. And I fear years from now I will still be
a lonely little Indian boy meeting a lonely little white-skinned girl who
says with the utmost sincerity sparkling in her Milky Way
eyes that she is an alien, reminding me of when I saw
lights flying in the sky above the summer rain dances
one hot evening when I was ten, and the impossibility of describing
how that singing is inscribed into my skin in a secret way
so that I can never pronounce it. And I tell her
with the utmost sincerity in my burning ears
that I'm an alien, too, and suddenly the foreignness
of the world makes sense, and in my heart I know
my lies are true, and the whitest little girl in the world
braids her fingers into mine as we stare into the shimmering stars,
and she sees her future and NASA satellites in low-earth orbit
and the arc of the International Space Station carving out borders,
and I see my past and an Arizona lake reflected in the waves of gravity.
---
This poem was inspired by an email from my mother about our distant relative Clifford Mahooty, who has appeared on Ancient Aliens, who has been disowned by his family and medicine society for his unconventional conspiracy theories, and my own fears of writing about my experiences as an Indian who did not grow up on the reservation.
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Moving it is fine with me.
