Signal, and: Grow, and: Burn, and: Away, and: Motion

SIGNAL/Mark Turcotte for Jim Mottonen Back when I used to be Indian I am climbing down through the dark ravines with my best friend, BiUy. We prowl the deep cuts until just out of sound of the rampaging dormitories. Straddling a fallen tree, we trade swigs from a flask of wine, draw breath and listen. Above us, in the vast black beyond the swaying tips of bursting branches, string tangled in the trees, our yeUow kite flaps in a hard wind. BiUy grins and whispers, three days, three nights. In a nearby field two lovers gaze at the sky, imagine a ghost, a UFO. I look up. Murmuring, BiUy remembers being a boy frozen by spidery shadows on his bedroom curtain. I remember hands Uke webs. He takes the flask from my fingers. The string is soil taut. We haven't been to class in days. No one has noticed. The Missouri Review · 17 GROW/Mark Turcotte Back when I used to be Indian I am scratching it aU down, pen clawing paper like a fevered bird. Everything is wing and word. Shiny seeds faU out of my hair, tumble over the worn edges of the rickety card table. Sunlight slants through dust. A tiny bead of blood drops from my eye, splatters into stars on the floor. Monsters and angels pop from the linoleum, rise in the air, perched on blue petals and rosy thorns. Long vines wrap and moan around my legs. I disappear. In the kitchen Mother scrubs pots and pans, wipes sweat from her brow, caUs for me to take out the trash. Waits. CaUs again. A garden moves in her living room, a wind stirs her hair. 18 · The Missouri Review BURN/Mark Turcotte Back when I used to be Indian I am crushing the dance floor, jump-boots thumping Johnny Rotten Johnny Rotten. Red lights blue bang at my eyes. The white girl watching does not know why and it doesn't matter. I spin spin, eat I don't care for breakfast, so what for lunch. She moves to me, dark gaze, tongue hot to lips. The music is hard, lights louder. She slides low against my hip to hiss, go go Geronimo. I stop. AU silence he sits beside the fire at the center of the floor, hands stirring the ashes, mouth moving in the shape of my name. I turn to reach toward him, take one step, feel my skin begin to flame away. The Missouri Review · 19 AWAY/Mark Turcotte Back when I used to be Indian I am listening to the white world, sunken in the strange smell of my new bed. Across the city the Lansing Drop Forge chomps at the night. Big bites out of thick moonUght. Sirens like dying crows. Distant dogs yap and whine. A breeze scrapes at the window screen. I puU the blanket tight to my neck, my hair rustles against the piUow. Heart shudders. I close. It is not the wind that scratches its dark and furry back along the walls of our house, throws long shadows, grunts and sniffs beneath the door. The rugaru surrounds my dreams, carries ghosts on its breath to bring me home. 20 · The Missouri Review MOTION/MflrÀ: Turcotte Back when I used to be Indian I am holding the words deep in my throat. The black and sUver Mustang sUces sUently toward an ancient, orange West Texas sky. The steering wheel shakes and hums in my hands Uke a dowsing stick. The sun is a bruise on the horizon. In the distance pump-jacks peck relentless at the Earth. To left and right the world is a blur of endless fences draped with coyote skins. Flexing my fingers I glance over at her soft, brown knees. This is the place. I cough. Maria laughs, stars spin from her teeth as night encircles us with sound. Wings, howling. She throws her arms around my neck and everything is swallowed. Mark Turcotte is the author of three collections, including The Feathered Heart. His work has most recently appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner and LUNA. His newest book, Exploding Chippewas,^ is forthcoming from TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University...