The Lover of Maps

She unfolds and folds me
directs me
to an exact place
on the reservation
where nothing is ever written down.
She tells me
our stories are maps
told on a scale
larger than can be held
by our clumsy hands.
Things (for an Indian) to Do in New York (City)

1.
Walk down the Avenue of the Americas
though it’s actually Sixth Avenue
and I mean walk right down the middle
of the Avenue of the Americas
and tell all of the cab drivers I love them
or walk down the middle of Wyckoff Street
in Brooklyn at three in the morning
waving my arms like a crazy man
because some New Yorker once told me
it will scare all of the muggers away
but I think it means those muggers
will just end up mugging an Indian
acting like a crazy man
but maybe I could make them laugh
and they’d leave me enough money
for another cannoli, cannoli, cannoli
or I might convince myself that I look more
like a mugger than one who is to be mugged
because I have dark skin, long hair
and those dark-skinned, long-haired muggers
will all nod their heads at me
whenever I walk by, brother to brother
but wait, everybody is a mugger
and that white man in a wool suit
just lifted my wallet
and disappeared down the Avenue
of the Americas, which, as we all know
by now, is actually Sixth Avenue
and lucky me, he took my throw-down
wallet, which only held a twenty
and a sepia photograph of Mister X.

2.
Read Ted Berrigan’s sonnets
and wonder how we are all alike
but still have absolutely nothing
in common. I stop bearded men
and beautiful women in the streets
and they’re all poets. Everybody
is bearded and beautiful. Everybody
is a poet. I roll a drunk over
in a doorway and he quotes
Robert Frost. My God, he’s home-
less and formalist. How much money
should I drop into his tin cup?

3.
The whole world does not belong
in any one place, but here we are
all of us gathered in Times Square
with guns drawn and teeth bared.
I want to find somebody to kill
because of their skin color. No.
I want to kill a busload of children
because of their parents’ religion
and I want to build a hate machine
in the middle of Times Square
and call it a piano. I want
to start a circus in Manhattan
and call it a church. I want to hail
a mounted policeman and call him God.

4.
What time is it? I stop
a passerby in this cruel city
and ask her. It’s 12:02 p.m.
she tells me and keeps
walking. She actually gave me
the correct time. Oh, the kindness
and I stop watch-wearer
after watch-wearer, asking
for the time and they all give it to me.
I could live here
forever. No, that’s not true
at all. I’m lying
because it’s nearly 1:34 p.m.
and I have three hours to kill
before the matinee show.
 

5.

There is nothing as sad as a bad guitar player
in the hotel room next door at some insane hour
moving his clumsy fingers from chord to chord
until you think, in those long pauses between
B flat and F, that he must be an Indian
adopted as a young child by a white family, and now
confused and desperate, has come to New York City
to become a rock star, but hocks his guitar
eventually for a bus ticket back home
to his white parents, who love him so much
they don’t say a word about his new braids
and they all travel to a powwow together
slightly embarrassed to find their feet tapping
along in an imperfect rhythm with the drums.

6.
I was looking for a happy ending
but instead found a refrigerator
abandoned on East Fifth Street.
Then I found a couch
a dining table with three chairs
and a microwave oven. I found
a lamp, a coffee table, and a television.
I found a perfect pair of shoes.

7.
I think how when I left the reservation
my entire world, which had been brown, became white
but this is New York City and everybody is brown
but this is America, too, and everybody is still
white, but then again, I know America is not white
exactly, but it is white inexactly, without
color, needing this or that blood to stain its hands.
 

8.
On some of these days
there would be too much to do
so I don’t even leave
the Brooklyn brownstone
and I’m frightened
because I’m an Indian
who knows the difference
between Monet and Manet
so I just watch TV
because I am an American
Indian and the walk to the subway
can break both of my hearts.

9.
On TV, more soccer riots in Europe.
There would be riots in American stadiums
during our particular games
if the people who had reason to riot
could pay the price for admission.

10.
But, America, I think how
your men will always find
a more effective way to kill.
No Indian would have ever invented
an automatic bow and arrow
but I love you still
in the way I have been taught
to love you:
with fear.


11.
So how is it possible
that I could fall in love
with every waitress
and waiter in Manhattan?
Stop. I’m not in love
with any of them.
It must be the food.
But they are gorgeous
though horrible at their jobs
so when they drop
the plates and cups
it still sounds like music.

12.

hen I think to thank all of you
for Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman
for the automobile and Orson Welles
for fluoride in the drinking water.


13.

Suddenly, there’s another Indian on the subway
sitting right beside me, surprise, there’s an Indian
on the subway, F Train from Brooklyn
to Manhattan, on a Monday afternoon, surprise
there is another Indian, I mean, another American
Indian sitting on the subway seat next to me—
really, in the seat right beside me, our legs touch
and I am convinced that she’s Indian, Native
American, Aboriginal, beneath her clothes
and she’s Indian in her clothes, and her clothes are Indian
because she’s wearing them. There’s an Indian
on the F Train all the way from Brooklyn
to Manhattan. She’s my wife, and she loves me,
she loves me, she loves me.
The Museum of Tolerance
has opened its doors
and, as agreed, we forgive all sins.
We check our coats
and regretfully remember
the twentieth century: War, war, war, war
followed closely by manned space flight.
I have the sudden urge to telephone old girlfriends and apologize!
This is the Museum of Tolerance: one room
with its one exhibit placed on a white satin pillow
which rests comfortably on an antique maple chair.
The exhibit: a small, red stone.
What does it mean? The debate begins simply enough
but adjectives and adverbs soon fill the room.
A man says, “If I am going to love somebody
then she must love me first.”
Flashbulbs, the whir of advancing film.
The Museum of Tolerance, thank God, is open all night
but nobody can agree on the price of admission.
Bob’s Coney Island
Let’s begin with this: America.
I want it all back
now, acre by acre, tonight. I want
some Indian to finally learn
to dance the Ghost Dance right
so that all of the salmon and buffalo return
and the white men are sent back home
to wake up in their favorite European cities.
I am not cruel.
Still, I hesitate
when Bob walks us around his Coney Island:
the Cyclone still running
the skeleton of the Thunderbolt
the Freak Show just a wall of photographs
the Parachute Drop
which has not been used in 30 years
but still looks like we could
tie a few ropes to the top (Why the hell not?) and drop
quickly down, spinning, unraveling
watching Bob’s Coney Island rise
from the ashes of the sad, old carnival
that has taken its place now, this carnival
that is so sad because, like Diane says
all carnivals are sad.
We drop to the ground, our knees buckle slightly
at impact. We turn to look at each other
with the kind of love and wonder
that only fear and the release of fear can create.
We climb to the top and parachute down
again and again, because there is an ocean
a few feet away, because Manhattan is just a moment
down the horizon, because there was a 13-year-old boy
who believed that Coney Island belonged to him
though we know that all we see
doesn’t really belong to anyone
but I’ll let Bob have a conditional lease
because I know finally
somebody will take care of this place
even if just in memory.
After the Trial of Hamlet, Chicago, 1994
Did Hamlet mean to kill Polonius? Diane and I sit at a table
with the rich, who have the luxury to discuss such things
over a veal dinner. The vegetables are beautiful! We have just come
from the mock Trial of Hamlet, which is more a fund-raiser
and social gathering, but we must render a verdict. I am here
because I wrote a book which nobody here has read, a book
that Diane reads because she loves me. My book has nothing
to do with Hamlet. My book is filled with reservation Indians.
Maybe my book has everything to do with Hamlet. The millionaire
next to me sets down one of his many forks to shake my hand.
He tells me the poor need the rich more than the rich need the poor.
Abigail Van Buren eats corn at the next table. I read this morning
she has always believed homosexuality is just as genetically determined
as heterosexuality. Finally. Somebody tells the truth. Dear Abby
can have all the corn she wants! I’ll pay. She wears a polka-dot dress
and is laughing loudly at something I know is not funny.
Did Hamlet really see his father’s ghost? Was there a ghost? Was Hamlet insane
or merely angry when he thrust his sword through
that curtain and killed Polonius? The millionaire tells me
taxicab drivers, shoe shine men, waiters, and waitresses exist
only because the rich, wearing shiny shoes, often need to be driven
to nice restaurants. A character actor walks by with a glass of wine.
I recognize him because I’m the type of guy who always recognizes
character actors. He knows that I recognize him but I cannot tell
if he wants me to recognize him. Perhaps he is afraid that I am
confusing him with another character actor who is more famous or less famous.
He might be worried that I will shout his name incorrectly
and loudly, transposing first and last names, randomly inserting
wild syllables that have nothing to do with his name.
Did Hamlet want to have sex with his mother Gertrude? Was Hamlet mad with
jealousy
because Claudius got to have sex with Gertrude? When is a king
more than a king? When is a king less than a king? Diane is beautiful.
She wears red lipstick which contrasts nicely with her brown skin.
We are the only Indians in Chicago! No, we are the only Indians
at the Trial of Hamlet. I hold her hand under the table, holding it
tightly until, of course, we have to separate so we can eat our food.
We need two hands to cut our veal. Yet Diane will not eat veal.
She only eats the beautiful vegetables. I eat the veal and feel guilty.
The millionaire tells me the rich would love a flat tax rate. He talks
about interest rates and capital gains, loss on investments
and trickle-down economics. He thinks he is smarter than me.
He probably is smarter than me, so I tell him insecurely that I wrote a book.
I know he will never read it. My book has nothing to do
with Polonius. My book is filled with reservation Indians. Maybe it has everything
to do with Polonius. A Supreme Court Justice
sits at the head table. He decides my life! He eats rapidly. I want to know how
he feels about treaty rights. I want to know if he feels
guilty about eating the veal. There is no doubt in my mind
the Supreme Court Justice recognizes the beauty of our vegetables.
Was Hamlet a man without logical alternatives? Did he resort
to a mindless, senseless violence? Were his actions those of a tired
and hateful man? Or those of a righteous son? The millionaire introduces his wife,
but she barely acknowledges our presence. Diane is more
gorgeous, though she grew up on reservations and once
sat in a tree for hours, wishing she had lighter skin. Diane wears
a scarf she bought for three dollars. I would ask her to marry me right
now, again, in this city where I asked her to marry me the first time.
But she already agreed to marry me then and has, in fact, married me.
Marriage causes us to do crazy things. She reads my books. I eat veal.
Was Hamlet guilty or not by reason of insanity for the murder of Polonius?
The millionaire tells me how happy he is to meet me. He wishes me
luck. He wants to know what I think of Hamlet’s case. He tells me Hamlet,
insane or not, is responsible for what he did. There is always something
beautiful in the world at any given moment. When I was poor I loved
the five-dollar bills I would unexpectedly find in coat pockets. When I feel
tired now, I can love the moon hanging over the old hotels of Chicago.
Diane and I walk out into the cold November air. We hail a taxi.
The driver is friendly, asks for our names, and Diane says, I’m Hamlet,
and this is Hamlet, my husband. The driver wants to know where we’re from
and which way we want to go. Home, we say, home.

"Reprinted from SUMMER OF BLACK WIDOWS

Captivity
He (my captor) gave me a biscuit, which I put in my pocket, and not daring to eat it, buried it
under a log, fearing he had put something in it to make me love him.
—from the narrative of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, who was taken captive when the
Wampanoag destroyed Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1676.

1.

When I tell you this story, remember it may change: the reservation recalls the white girl with no name or a name which refuses memory. October she filled the reservation school, this new white girl, daughter of a BIA official or doctor in the Indian Health Service Clinic. Captive, somehow afraid of the black hair and flat noses of the Indian children who rose, one by one, shouting their names aloud. She ran from the room, is still running, waving her arms wildly at real and imagined enemies. Was she looking toward the future? Was she afraid of loving all of us?

2.

All of us heard the explosion when the two cars collided on the reservation road. Five Indians died in the first car; four Indians died in the second. The only survivor was a white woman from Springdale who couldn’t remember her name.

3.

I remember your name, Mary Rowlandson. I think of you now, how necessary you have become. Can you hear me, telling this story within uneasy boundaries, changing you into a woman leaning against a wall beneath a HANDICAPPED PARKING ONLY sign, arrow pointing down directly at you? Nothing changes, neither of us knows exactly where to stand and measure the beginning of our lives. Was it 1676 or 1976 or 1776 or yesterday when the Indian held you tight in his dark arms and promised you nothing but the sound of his voice? September, Mary Rowlandson, it was September when you visited the reservation grade school. The speech therapist who tore the Indian boy from his classroom, kissed him on the lips, gave him the words which echoed treaty: He thrusts his fists against the posts but still insists he sees the ghosts. Everything changes. Both of us force the sibilant, in the language of the enemy.

4.

Language of the enemy: heavy lightness, house insurance, serious vanity, safe-deposit box, feather of lead, sandwich man, bright smoke, second-guess, sick health, shell game, still-waking sleep, forgiveness.

5.

How much longer can we forgive each other? Let’s say I am the fancydancer and every step is equal to a drum beat, this sepia photograph of you and me staring into the West of our possibilities. For now, you are wearing the calico dress that covers your ankles and wrists and I’m wearing a bone vest wrapped around a cotton shirt, my hair unbraided and unafraid. This must be 1876 but no, it is now, August, and this photograph will change the story. Remember: I am not the fancydancer, am not the fancydancer, not the fancydancer, the fancydancer, fancydancer.

6.

Fancydance through the tall grass, young man, over broken glass, past Crowshoe’s Gas Station where you can buy an Indian in a Bottle. “How do you fit that beer-belly in there?” asks a white tourist. “We do it,” I tell her, “piece by piece.”

7.

Piece by piece, I reassemble the house where I was born, but there is a hole in the wall where there was none before. “What is this?” I ask my mother. “It’s your sister,” she answers. “You mean my sister made that hole?” “No,” she says. “That hole in the wall is your sister.” For weeks, I searched our architecture, studied the walls for imperfections. Listen: imagination is all we have as defense against capture and its inevitable changes.

8.

I have changed my mind. In this story there are words fancydancing in the in-between, between then and now, between walls in the alley behind the Tribal Cafe where Indian boys smoke old cigarettes at halftime of the all-Indian basketball game. Mary Rowlandson, it’s true, isn’t it? Tobacco and sugar are the best weapons.

9.

The best weapons are the stories and every time the story is told, something changes. Every time the story is retold, something changes. There are no photographs, nothing to be introduced as evidence. The 20th century overtook the reservation in 1976, but there we were, stuck in 1975. Do you remember that white boy then, who spent the summer on the reservation? I don’t know how he arrived. Did his father pilot a DC-10 forced to make an emergency landing in the Trading Post parking lot? Did the BIA Forestry man find him frozen in amber? Did Irene sweep him up from the floor of a telephone booth? Lester FallsApart says he himself drank and half-swallowed the white boy out of a bottle of Annie Green Springs wine and spat him out whole into the dust. The nightwatchman at the Midnight Mine tells us he caught the white boy chewing uranium. Do you remember that white boy dove naked into Benjamin Lake? He wore the same Levi’s hung low on the hips, a red bandanna wrapped around his head. He tugged at his blond hair, yes, telling us “It will grow, I promise.” We beat him often, specifically. Arnold broke the white boy’s nose with a snowball he had saved, frozen and hidden in the fridge since March. It was July 4th when we kidnapped him and kept him captive in a chicken coop for hours. We spat and pissed on him through the wire; Seymour shot him twice with a pellet gun. That white boy fell backward into the nests, crushed eggs, splintered wood, kicked chickens blindly. I was the first to stop laughing when the white boy started digging into dirt, shit, the past, looking for somewhere to hide. We did not make him any promises. He was all we had left.

10.

All we had left was held captive here on the reservation, Mary Rowlandson, and I saw you there chewing salmon strips in the corner, hiding from all the Indians. Did you see him, Mary Rowlandson, the Indian man who has haunted your waking for 300 years, who left you alone sipping coffee in the reservation 7-11? I saw you there, again, as I walked home from the bar, grinning to the stars, but all you could do was wave from the window and mouth the eternal question: How?

11.

How do you open a tin can without a sharp-edged dream? How do you sleep in your post office box using junk mail for blankets? How do you see past the iron bars someone painted on your U.S. government glasses? How do you stop a reservation tsunami before it’s too late?

12.

It’s too late, Mary Rowlandson, for us to sit together and dig up the past you buried under a log, salvage whatever else you had left behind. What do you want? I cannot say, “I love you. I miss you.” June, Mary Rowlandson, the water is gone and my cousins are eating Lysol sandwiches. They don’t need you, will never search for you in the ash after your house has burned to the ground one more time. It’s over. That’s all you can depend on.

13.

All we can depend on are the slow-motion replays of our lives. Frame 1: Lester reaches for the next beer. Frame 2: He pulls it to his face by memory, drinks it like a 20th century vision. Frame 3: He tells a joke, sings another song: Well, they sent me off to boarding school and made me learn the white man’s rules.

14.

White man’s rules: all of us must follow them, must remember the name of the officer who arrested us for running when the sign said DON’T WALK. It’s the language of the enemy. There is no forgiveness for fancydancing on WET CEMENT. Before we move into the HUD house, we must build dreams from scratch, piece by piece, because SOME ASSEMBLY IS REQUIRED. Remember to insert CORRECT CHANGE ONLY when you choose the best weapons, the stories which measure all we have left. How do you know whether to use the IN or OUT door to escape? But it’s too late to go now, our four-door visions have been towed from a NO PARKING ZONE. Leonard tells me he’s waiting for the bus to the dark side of the moon, or Oz, or the interior of a drum. I load up my pockets with all my possessions and wait with him. That Greyhound leaves at 3 a.m. That’s all we can depend on.