Indigo Moor
Bio:
Poet Laureate Emeritus of Sacramento, Indigo Moor’s fourth book of poetry, Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something, took second place in the University of Nebraska Press’ Backwater Prize. Jonesin’—will be published in spring 2021. His second book, Through the Stonecutter’s Window, won Northwestern University Press’s Cave Canem prize. His first and third books, Tap-Root and In the Room of Thirsts & Hungers, were both parts of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series. Indigo is an adjunct professor at Dominican University and visiting faculty for Dominican’s MFA program, teaching poetry and short fiction. He is a Cave Canem fellow, former resident artist at 916 ink, and a graduate member of the Artists’ Residency Institute for Teaching Artists.
Veterans of Foreign Wars
Driving a street whose name
is lost to this crippling narrative, I spot my brother stumbling
hot-spit gravel drunk on another Sacramento heatwave. Lost in the needle
song I was too stupid too soft too something to protect him from. Don’t blame me. It was my car that
hopped two yellow lines in an angry crescent, switching lanes like channels, like a dog rushing to heel at the feet of a lost master.
Temples of dust rose from the ditch. I flung the door open, my heart wedged beneath my seatbelt, fluttering like a fat
moth in my chest. Was I Ahab or the whale? The iron-sharp harpoon or the pale giant’s triumph?
Either stifling heat or grief baked my mind simple. Yes, this man’s Pompei-flaked skin and helpless grin
are the same as the brother I knew, trapped in a body ravaged by mortar blast, a prison where all the keys
are swallowed by angry Gods. But I lost that brother two decades and an Iraqi leap away. This stranger’s wariness
says all you need to know about the silence between that afternoon and me those last seconds; a sparrow dead
on its perch. His shoulder brushed my bumper as he listed through a fresh wave of dust devils.
What he mumbles at my closing door before tilting away, I will never know.
But I believe it was I love you. As my car dug out of the ditch, I swear to you that’s what he said.
hot-spit gravel drunk on another Sacramento heatwave. Lost in the needle
song I was too stupid too soft too something to protect him from. Don’t blame me. It was my car that
hopped two yellow lines in an angry crescent, switching lanes like channels, like a dog rushing to heel at the feet of a lost master.
Temples of dust rose from the ditch. I flung the door open, my heart wedged beneath my seatbelt, fluttering like a fat
moth in my chest. Was I Ahab or the whale? The iron-sharp harpoon or the pale giant’s triumph?
Either stifling heat or grief baked my mind simple. Yes, this man’s Pompei-flaked skin and helpless grin
are the same as the brother I knew, trapped in a body ravaged by mortar blast, a prison where all the keys
are swallowed by angry Gods. But I lost that brother two decades and an Iraqi leap away. This stranger’s wariness
says all you need to know about the silence between that afternoon and me those last seconds; a sparrow dead
on its perch. His shoulder brushed my bumper as he listed through a fresh wave of dust devils.
What he mumbles at my closing door before tilting away, I will never know.
But I believe it was I love you. As my car dug out of the ditch, I swear to you that’s what he said.
American Bataan
Hot concrete beckons the raccoonuntil it scutters across the drivewayin broad daylight, surely rabid,unconcerned with death or afterlife orthe cat he mauled in the brambles acrossthe street or the dog that tore his earinto a crimson rag flopping over one eye.
The Dodge Dart’s smile littered with bugs. Wooden blocks for tires, a tarnished grill, and slanted grin. Skinny tomatoes staked to a dying garden glisten beneath sprinklers.
His eyes stone fixed on a fake horizon, flakingskyline of the neighbor’s wooden fence.In the next yard, an aging Doberman is waitingunder a fruitless Japanese myrtle, spoilingfor a fight, a reblossoming of past glories.
In the house, the owner eats, as if it is his idea, ramen three times a day. Even the canned beets wait in triage, soldiers knowing the next scalpel is for them. Tapered candles in mason jars dot the inner landscape like mute, accusatory children, awaiting nightfall, awaiting usefulness. The raccoon, his fur molting in clumps, everydrop of water a hot swelling his throat, staresat the tomatoes, then the man in the window.A thickness worms through both their eyes.There is respite over the next fence for bothof them, if they can find the strength to climb.He knows it as surely as he knows it’s a lie.
In the house, the owner eats, as if it is his idea, ramen three times a day. Even the canned beets wait in triage, soldiers knowing the next scalpel is for them. Tapered candles in mason jars dot the inner landscape like mute, accusatory children, awaiting nightfall, awaiting usefulness. The raccoon, his fur molting in clumps, everydrop of water a hot swelling his throat, staresat the tomatoes, then the man in the window.A thickness worms through both their eyes.There is respite over the next fence for bothof them, if they can find the strength to climb.He knows it as surely as he knows it’s a lie.
Finder of Lost Sheep
For Michael Llewelyn's photography workshop for veterans
Do they know your camera cutting
through the sawgrass has got their back more than a rifle or machete ever will? Most vets are stateside when
the domino—once fallen—jumps back upright, roll-calling them back to a minefield. Something as simple as a sparkler
tossed across a manicured lawn on the fourth blasts a tunnel open to a sallow field in Vietnam. Michael can't know if fingers that
balanced tripwires on a blade of grass can set shutters fast enough to fill a hole in memories and lost sunsets.
But, dammit, somebody's got to teach these survivors the difference between a rifle barrel and a child's arm.
The dull copper scent of VA bunks scatters reason like a hornet's nest dragged across cement.
Past-due mortgage bills roll up to mortar tubes. When the smoke clears, there's Michael hauling a hurdy-gurdy of flags into focus like butterfly wings pinned to cork and balsa wood. Someone opens a cave in a pantry door. A sniper's bullet rises like quail from a field. A point-man pours, then repours the same cup of gasoline on his head, setting decades ablaze. It's always the leaden crevices that nest the most fears. Where the camera flash needs to dig deepest. A sergeant's silhouette ghosts across a polished lens. Then scurries back into the underbrush. These soldiers hopped a broom with the devil. Now they struggle with stillness as a flashlight sets the focal point on the back of their irises, pulling at whatever secrets the mind stashed away in rusted footlockers. If our loved ones' days end with a lynchpin blowing their mind to smithereens, aren't we all doomed? Cue Michael, huddled over a tripod like the last Lord of Regret, trying to drag a kill shot back into a barrel.
Past-due mortgage bills roll up to mortar tubes. When the smoke clears, there's Michael hauling a hurdy-gurdy of flags into focus like butterfly wings pinned to cork and balsa wood. Someone opens a cave in a pantry door. A sniper's bullet rises like quail from a field. A point-man pours, then repours the same cup of gasoline on his head, setting decades ablaze. It's always the leaden crevices that nest the most fears. Where the camera flash needs to dig deepest. A sergeant's silhouette ghosts across a polished lens. Then scurries back into the underbrush. These soldiers hopped a broom with the devil. Now they struggle with stillness as a flashlight sets the focal point on the back of their irises, pulling at whatever secrets the mind stashed away in rusted footlockers. If our loved ones' days end with a lynchpin blowing their mind to smithereens, aren't we all doomed? Cue Michael, huddled over a tripod like the last Lord of Regret, trying to drag a kill shot back into a barrel.
