Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

tourists, carry our ancestors out to Highway 101,
scatter them to the wind. Our Lady of Sorrows weeps
in her niche behind the altar, dressed in black,
inconsolable. What has been done in her name? She
doesn’t want to know.
We gather this chipped harvest in our hands,
pockets, cotton tobacco pouches, circle the mission
slowly, follow Louise, who found our language
buried beneath her tongue, who places living words
in our hungry mouths for us to swallow whole.
James kneels, digs a hole with a flat sharp stone.
Chris prays shyly: the old grandmother hums inside
her skin. Ernie holds up the iridescent abalone shell,
lets pale blue smoke bless this lonely air. The
children hover like butterflies, taste the past without
fear.
Xu-lin, we say to our broken ancestors; xu-lin,
sprinkling sage, mugwort, and tobacco over the
small grave. Xu-lin, we whisper as the earth takes
back. Xu-lin, a plea and a promise: return.
Note: xu-lin means “reclaim, return, recover.”
In the Basement of the Bone
Museum