Dyslexia

I

Is dog God
through a child’s eyes,
whose world is reversed,
has to draw pictures
to create words,
to avoid eternal alienation,
punishment for being
made to feel stupid,
unable to spell God
the way they saw it.

Guilt was before I could walk,
cramped my belly,
like when I drank foul water
from caves beneath my house,
where sewer pipes wept stalactites.

Bravery camouflaged my truth,
conquered solitude’s shadow,
where death was a word
I couldn’t read or write.

II

Kindergarden was about red stars,
not gold, not quarters from Grand-dad,
but playing in dew-soaked hollows
where sinkholes hid my secrets.

My first day to first grade,
reluctance filled my footsteps.

Frozen in place,
fear clasped my brother’s hand.

No one knew,
certainly not my first grade teacher,
back-stroking to survive
in a sea of eighty children.

III

After school, alone in tall trees,
leaves hid earth,
warm sun was not jaundice,
and lies hooted like owls.
My wings yearned for a nest
to feed my hunger to read,
to be like others.

Immigrant

(In Phoenix construction business, illegal workers from Mexico are
often referred to as amigos. This is a story about Pablo, my amigo.)

Standing on decorative rock,
street side of Home Depot,
my amigo points calloused fingers
at his chest, layered in shirts,
wearing rock-torn shoes,
hands powdered concrete white,
eyes thirsty for work.

My pickup power window opens.
“Concrete?”

“Sí.”

“Block walls?”

“Sí.”

I flash six fingers. He holds up eight.
“You rapido Gonzales?”

He smiles. “Sí, yo trabajo rapido.”

The contract’s sealed.
My door locks click, and in he climbs,
tucking swollen hands under his folded arms.

“Amigo, you have number?”

Shrugging, he replies, “No comprendo.”

I raise my voice over freeway traffic.
“Social Security numero?”

Shoulders collapse, his doubting eyes wet with fear.

I look at him. “What’s your name? Como te llamas?”

His eyes catch mine. “Sí. Pablo.”
“Pablo, you hablar English?”

Shaking head left and right,
thumb and index finger touching, he mumbles,
“Poquito.”

I smile. “Mas dinero; you hablar English.”
He sits in silence as I drive
through cold sunrise.

I think about his struggle to cross
the desert border where death waits
for those who fall in thirst,
where coyotes who guide
are prepared to flee.

He must have run through exploding dust
as desert winds assaulted his eyes and throat,
his sweat a thin mud coat on the coyote’s run, fleeing
poverty to hope... de pobreza a esperanza.

My tires roar on concrete
as the radio plays Xmas music.

Pablo stares away.
his tears wiped
with hardened hands.
Pablo points to radio, “Navidad...
No he mirado mi familia en siete anos.”

His tears bead like pearls on woolen sleeves
como perlas en mi pasto.

I'm Not Thatwhiteman

When you look at me, Do you see my blue-eyed Celtic father Or do you see my dark eyed mother part Indian, part nobody, her father an orphan, a child slave, who didn't know his roots?

My brother was like her, dark eyes, black hair, always aching for white acceptance.

He felt Native souls in his bones, talked to man's souls with eyes of a wolf.

When I meet people, no one ever asks, "Are you Indian?"

They only see a white man, but I wasn't born white. I was taught to be white, taught to do what whites do, taught white was different, like God.

My mother's Native blood questioned these teachings, made me feel the earth breathe, helped me feel my father's humanity.

I didn't know about the Manifest Destiny, about white Anglos' ordained design to grow their democracy on others' land, even if it eliminated other races or cultures.

I'm not Thatwhiteman,

and I'm not that white missionary, who gave Great-grandmother, Blackfoot Woman Runs Fast, her Christian name, Martha, and forced her to starve on a reservation.

She ran away with a river boat pilot, became his squaw, slaved for him to escape hunger and bitter cold, escape her dream haunts about the ghosts of braves and buffalo herds swallowed by white man's hunger.

I'm Martha's great-grandson - but I'm not Thatwhiteman,

who raided Mexican landowners, drove them off ancestors' land, where north of the Rio Grande desert heat rushes up a cemetery hill on mid-summer days like ghost marauders, where Virgin Mary stands alone, her faded blue cement robe surrounded by broken, weathered crosses, erected by Mexican ancestors now illegal in their homeland.

I know the hearts of these people who struggle to survive,

and I'm not Thatwhiteman that sold Africans into slavery, leaving twenty-million black people without hope for deliverance from phantom pain caused by lost birthright, an amputated limb their minds cannot forget.

I grew up in the South where black males were called "boy". I was called "nigger lover," no longer white, just a southern boy the color of stupid.

As a small boy, Black people were a mystery, like Boo, who lived in To Kill a Mockingbird's scary house, which kids raced past because Boo was different. Different - the bigot's word, the word that makes you afraid to be close, to share your food and water, to share yourself.

When I dared to sneak into Boxtown, where the landfill and blacks lived. It was scary until we began playing as that black-white switch in our minds snapped off, and the one that turns on source light snapped on, and colors began to fade.

For as a child, big eyes swallow truths like cold Grapette sodas on a hot day. Children speak without fear, have to be hushed, sent to their room, have to be taught to stay in their box.

So many boxes... seems everyone has allowed their coffins to live their lives.

Coffins relating to coffins, while their human lives in darkness before last rites are read, and headstones set.

You won't put me in that box. Feel my blood, let it comfort your fears, let our feelings merge, let my soul free to burn in a billion colors, ‘cause I'm not Thatwhiteman.