When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz Page A

there may be angels, but if there are angels
    up there, living on clouds or sitting on thrones across the sea wearing
    velvet robes and golden rings, drinking whiskey from silver cups,
    we’re better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and
    â€™xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens.
    You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to
    Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.

Hand-Me-Down Halloween

    The year we moved off / the reservation /
    a / white / boy up the street gave me a green trash bag
    fat with corduroys, bright collared shirts

    & a two-piece / Tonto / costume
    turquoise thunderbird on the chest
    shirt & pants

    the color of my grandmother’s skin / reddish brown /
    my mother’s skin / brown-redskin /
    My mother’s boyfriend laughed

    said now I was a / fake / Indian
    look-it her now yer
/
In-din
/
girl is a
/
fake
/
In-din
    My first Halloween off / the reservation /

    / white / Jeremiah told all his / white / friends
    that I was wearing his old costume
    / A hand-me-down? /

    I looked at my hands
    All them / whites / laughed at me
    / called me half-breed /

    threw Tootsie Rolls at / the half-breed / me
    Later / darker / in the night
    at / white / Jeremiah’s front door /
tricker treat
/

    I made a / good / little Injun his father said
    now don’t you make a
/
good
/
little Injun
    He gave me a Tootsie Roll

    More night came / darker / darker /
    Mothers gathered their / white / kids from the dark
    My / dark / mother gathered / empty / cans

    while I waited to gather my / white / kid
    I waited to gather / white / Jeremiah
    He was / the skeleton / walking past my house

    a glowing skull and ribs
    I ran & tackled his / white / bones / in the street
    His candy spilled out / like a million pinto beans /

    Asphalt tore my / brown-red-skin / knees
    I hit him harder and harder / whiter / and harder
    He cried for his momma

    I put my fist-me-downs / again and again and down /
    He cried / for that white / She came running
    She swung me off him

    dug nails into my wrist
    pulled me to my front door
    yelled at her / white / kid to go wait at home

    go wait at home Jeremiah, Momma will take care of this
    She was ready / to take care of this /
    to pound on my door / but no
tricker treat
/

    My door was already open
    and before that white could speak or knock
    / or put her hands down on my door /

    my mother told her to take her hands off of me
    taker
/
fuck-king
/
hands off my girl
    My mother stepped / or fell / toward that white /

    I don’t remember what happened next
    I don’t remember that / white / momma leaving
    / but I know she did /

    My mother’s boyfriend said
    well / Kemosabe / you ruined your costume
    wull
/
Ke-mo-sa-be
/
you fuckt up yer costume

    My first Halloween
    off / the reservation /
    my mother said / maybe / next year

    you can be a little Tinker Bell / or something /
    now go git that
/
white
/
boy’s can-dee
    â€”iss-in the road

Why I Hate Raisins

    And is it only the mouth and belly which are injured by hunger and thirst?
    Mencius

    Love is a pound of sticky raisins
    packed tight in black and white
    government boxes the day we had no
    groceries. I told my mom I was hungry.
    She gave me the whole bright box.
    USDA stamped like a fist on the side.
    I ate them all in ten minutes. Ate
    too many too fast. It wasn’t long
    before those old grapes set like black
    clay at the bottom of my belly
    making it ache and swell.

    I complained,
I hate raisins.
    I just wanted a sandwich like other kids.
    Well that’s all we’ve got, my mom sighed.
    And what other kids?
    Everyone but me,
I told her.
    She said,
You mean the white kids.
    You want to be a white kid?
    Well too bad ’cause you’re my kid.
    I cried,
At least the white kids get a sandwich.
    At least the white kids don’t get the shits.

    That’s when she slapped me. Left me
    holding my mouth and