Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

Do you remember us?
Do we look like someone you knew?
We confess everything, chewed
by the mouths of history and science.
We ache with fractures
from the echoes of that turbulence.
Touch us. Claim us.
Take us home. Tell us,
we have never forgotten you.
Testimony
In late December 1974, I was a moody seventh
grader in raggedy-edged bell-bottoms who confided
to my teacher that I missed my dad. I had not seen
him since I was three years old. All I knew for sure
was that he was Indian, dark, handsome, and had
been sent to San Quentin for eight years.
“He’d be out now,” I said to my teacher. “I wish I
knew him.”
Mr. Thompson called my mother to suggest an
effort at reconnecting; that night my mother made
some calls to California, tracked my father down,
and told him that he had a daughter who was asking