khipu

( ____________________ )

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maybe all

you ever lose

reminds you of

the original loss

/

those threads

running through

vein, cartilage, bone

knots like khipu

absence recorded in

language only your

ancestral body

could know

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blood spilled

for stolen thing

/

hurt as something

intimate and familiar

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maybe loss is a vehicle

for remembrance

inside me there is longing

mamá always says open 

your mouth to the sun

so you can be healed

i wonder how many 

UV beams streaming

into open caverns of

human loneliness 

it might take to make 

her come good again

she’s been on the drink 

i’m driving her home

she talks about her dreams

i smile and feel like a parent

it doesn’t hurt like it used to

simp’aykuna

i am thinking about hair

mamá tells me bisabuela

washed her hair with herbs

flowing to the floor

moving like waves

i think of what her name

feels like in my mouth

unsung hymn to native woman

i am asking about our hair

her hair, why she always 

wears simp’aykuna

she tells me doing hair

is ceremony, connector

to greater things

to guard our spirit

to show respect to the gods

“remember en Cusco?”

she reminds me of how 

our people always wear

hats or their chullos

“to stop things from

getting in too, 

hija querida.

to protect.”

i am thinking of native women

who swallow mountains

weaving hands

i am thinking of simp’aykuna 

extension of this movement

intertwining tendrils

of living thing

i see her standing there

speaking language

tending to the earth

i dream of Andahuaylas

it feels the same in 

my mouth as her name

places and people 

as ancestors

i’ve never seen

but see me, sing to me

they want me to put my

hands in the soil

spit on the earth

bare coca stained teeth

they want to know me

i am thinking about hair

i am thinking about distance 

patrilineal

dreamt you were a poem 

i kept writing you

if i am alive it means

parts of you are still

dreamt you were an ocean

i kept being afraid of you

if i am alive it means

i am here to reunite

ghosts of lineage past

what would it mean for them 

to taste freedom? 

shackles look different

but i know yours because

they became mine

we both had pain to run from

you just got away first 

i am choosing to run towards

instead

create a new legacy

one you might’ve wanted

to inherit

to give to us

you were second last 

of your brothers 

to die

but the first 

to put up a fight

dreamt you were a story

i’ll keep writing you

drink

i am tracing river

back to beginning

back to mouth

to the first body 

where palm lines        

become maps

for tirakuna
                                 i know you 

are thirsty

suq’uy

her waters

our rivers call me by names

i haven’t heard before

arms extending across

mouth and state and sea

gentle pull at my seams

gotta unravel to hear ‘em

ocean is loudest when 

i’m coastal can’t go 

anywhere without 

hearing her song

mamá says when you 

become water you will sail 

sometimes i’m done fighting

to float feels like birthright 

i am a willing participant 

this is a devotion i belong to

musquy

let the train pass

create wind from body

if i close my eyes hard

enough i might return

to mountain

to river

to dreaming

i wonder if this is

how they survived

so far from home