When My Brother Was an Aztec

by Natalie Diaz

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  This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

  With immeasurable gratitude to Cecilia,

  Diane, Eloise, Janet, and Ted

  No hay mal que dure cien años,

  ni cuerpo que lo resista.

  —Spanish proverb

  Contents

  Title Page

  Note to Reader

  When My Brother Was an Aztec

  I

  Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation

  Hand-Me-Down Halloween

  Why I Hate Raisins

  The Red Blues

  The Gospel of Guy No-Horse

  A Woman with No Legs

  Tortilla Smoke: A Genesis

  Reservation Mary

  Cloud Watching

  Mercy Songs to Melancholy

  If Eve Side-Stealer & Mary Busted-Chest Ruled the World

  The Last Mojave Indian Barbie

  Reservation Grass

  Other Small Thundering

  Jimmy Eagle ’s Hot Cowboy Boots Blues

  The Facts of Art

  Prayers or Oubliettes

  The Clouds Are Buffalo Limping toward Jesus

  II

  My Brother at 3 a.m.

  Zoology

  How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs

  Downhill Triolets

  As a Consequence of My Brother Stealing All the Lightbulbs

  Formication

  Mariposa Nocturna

  Black Magic Brother

  A Brother Named Gethsemane

  Soirée Fantastique

  No More Cake Here

  III

  I Watch Her Eat the Apple

  Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love

  Self-Portrait as a Chimera

  Dome Riddle

  I Lean Out the Window and She Nods Off in Bed, the Needle Gently Rocking on the Bedside Table

  Monday Aubade

  When the Beloved Asks, “What Would You Do if You Woke Up and I Was a Shark?”

  Lorca’s Red Dresses

  Of Course She Looked Back

  Apotheosis of Kiss

  Orange Alert

  The Elephants

  Why I Don’t Mention Flowers When Conversations with My Brother Reach Uncomfortable Silences

  The Beauty of a Busted Fruit

  Love Potion 2012

  A Wild Life Zoo

  About the Author

  Books by Natalie Diaz

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Special Thanks

  When My Brother Was an Aztec

  he lived in our basement and sacrificed my parents

  every morning. It was awful. Unforgivable. But they kept coming

  back for more. They loved him, was all they could say.

  It started with him stumbling along la Avenida de los Muertos,

  my parents walking behind like effigies in a procession

  he might burn to the ground at any moment. They didn’t know

  what else to do except be there to pick him up when he died.

  They forgot who was dying, who was already dead. My brother

  quit wearing shirts when a carnival of dirty-breasted women

  made him their leader, following him up and down the stairs—

  They were acrobats, moving, twitching like snakes— They fed him

  crushed diamonds and fire. He gobbled the gifts. My parents

  begged him to pluck their eyes out. He thought he was

  Huitzilopochtli, a god, half-man half-hummingbird. My parents

  at his feet, wrecked honeysuckles, he lowered his swordlike mouth,

  gorged on them, draining color until their eyebrows whitened.

  My brother shattered and quartered them before his basement festivals—

  waved their shaking hearts in his fists,

  while flea-ridden dogs ran up and down the steps, licking their asses,

  turning tricks. Neighbors were amazed my parents’ hearts kept

  growing back—It said a lot about my parents, or parents’ hearts.

  My brother flung them into cenotes, dropped them from cliffs,

  punched holes into their skulls like useless jars or vases,

  broke them to pieces and fed them to gods ruling

  the ratty crotches of street fair whores with pocked faces

  spreading their thighs in flophouses with no electricity. He slept

  in filthy clothes smelling of rotten peaches and matches, fell in love

  with sparkling spoonfuls the carnival dog-women fed him. My parents

  lost their appetites for food, for sons. Like all bad kings, my brother

  wore a crown, a green baseball cap turned backwards

  with a Mexican flag embroidered on it. When he wore it

  in the front yard, which he treated like his personal zócalo,

  all his realm knew he had the power that day, had all the jewels

  a king could eat or smoke or shoot. The slave girls came

  to the fence and ate out of his hands. He fed them maíz

  through the chain links. My parents watched from the window,

  crying over their house turned zoo, their son who was

  now a rusted cage. The Aztec held court in a salt cedar grove

  across the street where peacocks lived. My parents crossed fingers

  so he’d never come back, lit novena candles

  so he would. He always came home with turquoise and jade

  feathers and stinking of peacock shit. My parents gathered

  what he’d left of their bodies, trying to stand without legs,

  trying to defend his blows with missing arms, searching for their fingers

  to pray, to climb out of whatever dark belly my brother, the Aztec,

  their son, had fed them to.

  I

  Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation

  Angels don’t come to the reservation.

  Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.

  Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—

  death. And death

  eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel

  fly through this valley ever.

  Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though—

  he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical

  Indian. Sure he had wings,

  jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops,

  kids grow like gourds from women’s bellies.
r />   Like I said, no Indian I’ve ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.

  Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something—

  Nazarene church holds one every December,

  organized by Pastor John’s wife. It’s no wonder

  Pastor John’s son is the angel—everyone knows angels are white.

  Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.

  Remember what happened last time

  some white god came floating across the ocean?

  Truth is, there may be angels, but if there are angels

  up there, living on clouds or sitting on thrones across the sea wearing

  velvet robes and golden rings, drinking whiskey from silver cups,

  we’re better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and

  ’xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens.

  You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to

  Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.

  Hand-Me-Down Halloween

  The year we moved off / the reservation /

  a / white / boy up the street gave me a green trash bag

  fat with corduroys, bright collared shirts

  & a two-piece / Tonto / costume

  turquoise thunderbird on the chest

  shirt & pants

  the color of my grandmother’s skin / reddish brown /

  my mother’s skin / brown-redskin /

  My mother’s boyfriend laughed

  said now I was a / fake / Indian

  look-it her now yer / In-din / girl is a / fake / In-din

  My first Halloween off / the reservation /

  / white / Jeremiah told all his / white / friends

  that I was wearing his old costume

  / A hand-me-down? /

  I looked at my hands

  All them / whites / laughed at me

  / called me half-breed /

  threw Tootsie Rolls at / the half-breed / me

  Later / darker / in the night

  at / white / Jeremiah’s front door / tricker treat /

  I made a / good / little Injun his father said

  now don’t you make a / good / little Injun

  He gave me a Tootsie Roll

  More night came / darker / darker /

  Mothers gathered their / white / kids from the dark

  My / dark / mother gathered / empty / cans

  while I waited to gather my / white / kid

  I waited to gather / white / Jeremiah

  He was / the skeleton / walking past my house

  a glowing skull and ribs

  I ran & tackled his / white / bones / in the street

  His candy spilled out / like a million pinto beans /

  Asphalt tore my / brown-red-skin / knees

  I hit him harder and harder / whiter / and harder

  He cried for his momma

  I put my fist-me-downs / again and again and down /

  He cried / for that white / She came running

  She swung me off him

  dug nails into my wrist

  pulled me to my front door

  yelled at her / white / kid to go wait at home

  go wait at home Jeremiah, Momma will take care of this

  She was ready / to take care of this /

  to pound on my door / but no tricker treat /

  My door was already open

  and before that white could speak or knock

  / or put her hands down on my door /

  my mother told her to take her hands off of me

  taker / fuck-king / hands off my girl

  My mother stepped / or fell / toward that white /

  I don’t remember what happened next

  I don’t remember that / white / momma leaving

  / but I know she did /

  My mother’s boyfriend said

  well / Kemosabe / you ruined your costume

  wull / Ke-mo-sa-be / you fuckt up yer costume

  My first Halloween

  off / the reservation /

  my mother said / maybe / next year

  you can be a little Tinker Bell / or something /

  now go git that / white / boy’s can-dee

  —iss-in the road

  Why I Hate Raisins

  And is it only the mouth and belly which are injured by hunger and thirst?

  Mencius

  Love is a pound of sticky raisins

  packed tight in black and white

  government boxes the day we had no

  groceries. I told my mom I was hungry.

  She gave me the whole bright box.

  USDA stamped like a fist on the side.

  I ate them all in ten minutes. Ate

  too many too fast. It wasn’t long

  before those old grapes set like black

  clay at the bottom of my belly

  making it ache and swell.

  I complained, I hate raisins.

  I just wanted a sandwich like other kids.

  Well that’s all we’ve got, my mom sighed.

  And what other kids?

  Everyone but me, I told her.

  She said, You mean the white kids.

  You want to be a white kid?

  Well too bad ’cause you’re my kid.

  I cried, At least the white kids get a sandwich.

  At least the white kids don’t get the shits.

  That’s when she slapped me. Left me

  holding my mouth and stomach—

  devoured by shame.

  I still hate raisins,

  but not for the crooked commodity lines

  we stood in to get them—winding

  around and in the tribal gymnasium.

  Not for the awkward cardboard boxes

  we carried them home in. Not for the shits

  or how they distended my belly.

  I hate raisins because now I know

  my mom was hungry that day, too,

  and I ate all the raisins.

  The Red Blues

  There is a dawn between my legs,

  a rising of mad rouge birds, overflowing

  and crazy-mean, bronze-tailed hawks,

  a phoenix preening

  sharp-hot wings, pretty pecking procession,

  feathers flashing like flames

  in a Semana Santa parade.

  There are bulls between my legs,

  a torera

  stabbing her banderillas,

  snapping her cape, tippy-toes scraping

  my mottled thighs, the crowd’s throats open,

  shining like new scars, cornadas glowing

  from beneath hands and white handkerchiefs

  bright as bandages.

  There are car wrecks between my legs,

  a mess of maroon Volkswagens,

  a rusted bus abandoned in the Grand Canyon,

  a gas tanker in flames,

  an IHS van full of corned beef hash,

  an open can of commodity beets

  on this village’s one main road, a stoplight

  pulsing like a bullet hole, a police car

  flickering like a new scab,

  an ambulance driven by Custer,

  another ambulance

  for Custer.

  There is a war between my legs,

  ’ahway nyavay, a wager, a fight, a losing

  that cramps my fists, a battle on eroding banks

  of muddy creeks, the stench of metal,

  purple-gray clotting the air,

  in the grass the bodies

  dim, cracked pomegranates, stone fruit,

  this orchard stains

  like a cemetery.

  There is a martyr between my legs,

  my personal San Sebastián

  leaking reed arrows and sin, stubbornly sewing

  a sacred red ribbon dress, ahvay chuchqer,

  the carmine threads

  pull the Colorado River,
’Aha Haviily, clay,

  and creosotes from the skirt,

  each wound a week,

  a coral moon, a calendar, a begging

  for a master, or a slave, for a god

  in magic cochineal pants.

  There are broken baskets between my legs,

  cracked vases, terra-cotta crumbs,

  crippled grandmothers with mahogany skins

  whose ruby shoes throb on shelves in closets,

  who teach me to vomit

  this fuchsia madness,

  this scarlet smallpox blanket,

  this sugar-riddled amputated robe,

  these cursive curses scrawling down my calves,

  this rotting strawberry field, swollen sunset,

  hemoglobin joke with no punch line,

  this crimson garbage truck,

  this bloody nose, splintered cherry tree, manzano,

  this métis Mary’s heart,

  guitarra acerezada, red race mestiza, this cattle train,

  this hand-me-down adobe drum,

  this slug in the mouth,

  this ’av’unye ’ahwaatm, via roja dolorosa,

  this dark hut, this mud house, this dirty bed,