The Palace of Bones

War Tribes

War Tribes I. In America we are selling the stars To our mothers. We have always believed They were ours, and don’t know why We leave things behind. It is a terrible habit To believe something you can’t even touch Should belong to you. Everybody on these streets Has been left by someone. Lamps hang above The doorways in case the ones who left return. The ones who left do return, only to gaze in The windows, bewildered and impolite, their heads Full of new love and lamb and yellow pepper. II. There are places where sand of black and red glass Leaks into the north like a fable, fickle and eyeless, Riding the water like a horse’s back, to an island That gives like heaven—a bouillabaisse of hands and hearts. A cold smoke covers the battlefields, blurring The shades of the earth: brown, lily, basil. 49 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. White boats carry macadamia and mango. Men in wicker skirts lay them in the garden, Delicately as sleeping owls, so the tongues Of the children stay sweet to sing prayers In the choir at dark. III. Far in the woods, Past the woodpecker’s wild breath, Before you come upon the words, Quiet hangs lusciously in your ears Like the soreness of salt, the pulse Of a swelling sea, then their voices Prowl upon you like bleeding angels, So harmless and drunk, They make you think you’re God. Every man is both your child and father. IV. The tribe sheds its skin To see if its blood is black. Some will claim their blood is white To sleep in a straw house past the hills, And use their old, old hands only to feed The corpse, a dead child with green eyes, 50 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. As jade is considered a holy stone, A color that gleams of fertility. V. They don’t know there are places Where the stars have already been sold. VI. America. Not even the stars are free. Clocks break in our hands. Angels bleed in our heavy, silver hair. Like a maze of wires, we hurry To the crust of fruitless cities, watching To see who’s watching us. Measuring Our lives against the dazzling dresses of monarchs. We are the reigns of monsoons, We are the floggers and drivers. Like ironfisted statues, We have drowned the world. With Dutch gold cradles we move From shoe to shoe, boots to slippers, Hauling picture frames in our pockets, Saving portraits of our lives, Insisting they be buried with us. 51 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...