Ketchikan
This poem is written after the homelands of the Tlingit and Haida peoples.
In a dark wood, my eyes catch a bird or a will-o’-wisp,
a scarlet flame haunting the air. My feet
stumble, succumbing to residual seasickness. The axis
inside me quivers, pulls toward the water. I’ve seen it
before, not this place, but vastness—the darkness
of midnight, a field of grass trembling all at once, an ocean
left unmoving. It’s all the same, all glorious. Almost
grotesque. In my narrowness, I’m nearly a feather, a spruce
needle, a silver seam on the forest’s brow. Little Hair
could be a name, never mine. I own nothing here, not even
these legs knee-deep in saltwater, reeling, tumbling
backward. How could I keep my balance
in this body that isn’t mine, on this ground where I am
trespassing? When the rain hardens, dropping
like stones, I square my shoulders like an eagle raring
to push off. And when the last of the motion sickness
shakes me, I understand. This land is used to grief, scarred
and starved for a warm palm to the soil. Still, the forest
extends what it hasn’t yet lost, some shape I can’t
define: the ear of a rabbit, the leaf of a sapling, too tender
to touch entirely. It’s a slow, gentle bravery
that only the bereft know. The fog parts
and my gaze fixes to the trees, standing in thousands.
This is all new growth, a ranger tells me, be gentle.
This earth is far from nameless.
For its sorrow, am I ever truly blameless?
Gayatri
Om bhur bhuva swaha.
Prayer was my first enemy,
my tongue catching reverence from
flickering script, and how a blurred
Om bhur bhuva swaha.
recitation is a guilty
verdict. I am incense-dripping
sandalwood and burning pages,
Om bhur bhuva swaha.
how a mother tongue is the first
to be smothered. My father, God,
accuses me of stuffing my
…Om bhur bhuva swaha.
faith in my cheeks like an acorn—
he does not notice how I am
choking, how I am forgetting
…Om bhur bhuva swaha.
more and more words. The calendar
pages begin peeling away,
a full moon blooms overhead, an
…Om bhur bhuva swaha.
aarti circles me. I watch the
flame whittle to smoke, all I can
do to stomach the sounds, the
…Om bhur bhuva swaha.
shame. My God, my generation
is one of loss. Lose a language,
two, lose a god, too. Yes, Grandma
…Om bhur bhuva swaha
and Grandpa taught me well, how to
utter a dying tongue. Now, the
songs wax American, slicing
…Om bhur bhuva swaha.
Sanskrit into bone shards. What it
must be like to love God without
a knife to your palm I cannot
…Om bhur bhuva swaha.
imagine. I am cut open
on altar edges and bleeding
gospel, kissed by the holy word,
Amen, Father and Son.
my foot caught in a rosary,
dragged into the quicksand-black-hole
of shallow promises. I sink,
Amen, Father and Son.
Bible pages trailing like the
tail of a meteor. In his
prayers, Baba is already
Amen, Father and So.
dead, crushed by the unforgiving
weight of the cross. In mine, I was
damned before I could pray for my
own salvation.
Amen.
