Rita with dishwater blonde hair,
one quarter Yakama,
tended bar in Brownstown
on the edge of the reservation,
White Swan.
She talked about how a dog looked
like a wolf when it slept.
She was happy being around men,
why she stayed single,
she said. She had never married
but was a lover, men attested.
Ray McDonald was a quarterback,
a tall high school boy
with one wooden leg, but kept
his feet and got off a pass
before they reached him.
Rita knew Ray was too young
though he never drank or smoked,
but just the same she let him
through the door at closing time.
He waited while she locked up
and went with her to sleep the night.
She liked to draw wolves on the wood,
and circles she filled with false faces.
Ray worked summers shocking hay,
bucking bales, milking cows,
butchering hogs. In the fall,
if she had the night off Rita went
to watch Ray fade back to pass,
as smoothly as any graceful biped.
(19 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Gravel Pit
Trucks went there to scoop out what they needed.
When the gravel was gone the pit was filled
with water and stocked with minnows for bait.
The young skipped flat rocks across the water.
Irene tried. I showed her how. Love was all
it took. I told her what an arm she had.
I liked to drive the highpile gravel road
to the Satus Shaker Indian Church.
Once inside we were tempted to make love
on the hardwood floor in the near bare room
with its chairs around the outer edges,
a lectern on a table. That was all,
a body needed more when there were two
involved. I took the blanket from the car
and naked, I lay her nakedly down.
We made slow love as long as the young can.
In Toppenish we went to the movies.
We very rarely saw Granger people.
They haunted the main drag in Sunnyside.
They liked to hang around its Dairy Queen.
We knew their names but they were not our friends.
A poor-white boy and a Mexican girl
preferred to stay away from the hubbub.
I so excelled in football my last year
I would have gone to California
had Ross Sohappy not preceded me.
One year in Coalinga was too much.
He was a chief's son. He died in a fire,
I learned in Seattle. I was waiting,
Irene’s bare feet tense against the stirrups.
(19 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
When the gravel was gone the pit was filled
with water and stocked with minnows for bait.
The young skipped flat rocks across the water.
Irene tried. I showed her how. Love was all
it took. I told her what an arm she had.
I liked to drive the highpile gravel road
to the Satus Shaker Indian Church.
Once inside we were tempted to make love
on the hardwood floor in the near bare room
with its chairs around the outer edges,
a lectern on a table. That was all,
a body needed more when there were two
involved. I took the blanket from the car
and naked, I lay her nakedly down.
We made slow love as long as the young can.
In Toppenish we went to the movies.
We very rarely saw Granger people.
They haunted the main drag in Sunnyside.
They liked to hang around its Dairy Queen.
We knew their names but they were not our friends.
A poor-white boy and a Mexican girl
preferred to stay away from the hubbub.
I so excelled in football my last year
I would have gone to California
had Ross Sohappy not preceded me.
One year in Coalinga was too much.
He was a chief's son. He died in a fire,
I learned in Seattle. I was waiting,
Irene’s bare feet tense against the stirrups.
(19 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Monday, July 18, 2011
Sunnyside: II
Before Juan’s mother left
following the second Manuel’s
demise, Irene Castenada
became pregnant.
Floyce Alexander wrote
in the Londres and Irene stayed
in the Ibero. She wanted his child.
He said he would give up writing
if she would abort the fetus.
She didn’t want him to stop.
He kept on writing . . . secretly?
That’s why he kept the room
apart. Manuela Roma
drove them to the aeropuerto
finally. Floyce wanted to stay.
So did Irene, but she wanted to go
back to Seattle. She found a doctor
who counted herself a benefactor
of beautiful young women like Irene.
When Floyce wanted to change his mind
Irene told the doctor to go ahead.
Love was cold when it was shaky.
How long had they loved,
two years, three . . . He left Seattle
to drive her home. Her father and mother
waited on the Rattlesnake Range
ten miles from Sunnyside, the little town
whose city limits sign announced,
Here is the hometown of Sally Ride,
America’s first female astronaut.
(18 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
following the second Manuel’s
demise, Irene Castenada
became pregnant.
Floyce Alexander wrote
in the Londres and Irene stayed
in the Ibero. She wanted his child.
He said he would give up writing
if she would abort the fetus.
She didn’t want him to stop.
He kept on writing . . . secretly?
That’s why he kept the room
apart. Manuela Roma
drove them to the aeropuerto
finally. Floyce wanted to stay.
So did Irene, but she wanted to go
back to Seattle. She found a doctor
who counted herself a benefactor
of beautiful young women like Irene.
When Floyce wanted to change his mind
Irene told the doctor to go ahead.
Love was cold when it was shaky.
How long had they loved,
two years, three . . . He left Seattle
to drive her home. Her father and mother
waited on the Rattlesnake Range
ten miles from Sunnyside, the little town
whose city limits sign announced,
Here is the hometown of Sally Ride,
America’s first female astronaut.
(18 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Sunnyside: I
My own father, Floyce Alexander said
to Juan, when he was still smoking
but had stopped drinking . . .
He is buried in Sunnyside
next to someone named DUNCAN,
and Juan said, The poet? And Floyce replied,
There are no poets in that town;
besides, his grave is on the edge of town.
In this town Irene and I went to mass
and we made love afterward on the hill.
Juan knew she was the same Irene he met
in Mexico City that time she came
with Jess Maltos, when Floyce Alexander
was down at Mina y Buenavista
living, he would say, if you can call it
living. His father named Manuel, like both
of Juan’s, the one buried in The Punch Bowl
and the one alive living here, and he
said living, not a bone in his body
that did not thank God, Whose flesh on his tongue
led home. Jess took her there to be with Floyce,
who was quartered in Londres then, working
in a room as large as a large closet,
the kind you walk in to find what you need,
what you want having been ruled out by love’s
caprice. Jess found him there. So did Irene,
who stayed and moved with him across the street
to Ibero, where green and orange hair’d
whores waited in an alcove by the desk.
They knew what to do to keep on living.
(18 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
to Juan, when he was still smoking
but had stopped drinking . . .
He is buried in Sunnyside
next to someone named DUNCAN,
and Juan said, The poet? And Floyce replied,
There are no poets in that town;
besides, his grave is on the edge of town.
In this town Irene and I went to mass
and we made love afterward on the hill.
Juan knew she was the same Irene he met
in Mexico City that time she came
with Jess Maltos, when Floyce Alexander
was down at Mina y Buenavista
living, he would say, if you can call it
living. His father named Manuel, like both
of Juan’s, the one buried in The Punch Bowl
and the one alive living here, and he
said living, not a bone in his body
that did not thank God, Whose flesh on his tongue
led home. Jess took her there to be with Floyce,
who was quartered in Londres then, working
in a room as large as a large closet,
the kind you walk in to find what you need,
what you want having been ruled out by love’s
caprice. Jess found him there. So did Irene,
who stayed and moved with him across the street
to Ibero, where green and orange hair’d
whores waited in an alcove by the desk.
They knew what to do to keep on living.
(18 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Out There
I would draw you a map if I could.
A drawn map endures.
Is that why there is none?
She took me out there the first time.
Her mother at the door.
Her father gone.
Her mother said her father was hunting.
All the windows were open
and the door ajar.
The wind was not blowing.
What was he hunting?
The sand had stopped: no more drifting.
He was hunting rattlesnakes.
It was a long way to walk to find rocks.
There was no water.
On the map there would appear
shaped hills at this place,
nothing else, or very little.
Her mother waits with her daughter,
the one who has lived.
She sits me at the table in his place.
She says he is too old to catch the snakes.
He will die if he persists.
It is given to a Mexican wife
to expect dying alone
until her children come home.
Why else would I fear for her daughter?
All I have is inside, waiting.
She says I can use her hands
if my fingers grow gnarled
like a rooster’s claws.
She says I can see through her eyes,
sleep inside her nest.
I tell her I can do nothing but leave
to better my lot
and hers, if she waits.
Her mother asks her to find her father.
Out there she wears huaraches.
I was born in Mexico, you know;
and I: No, I believed it was here.
That is all past, she swears.
She is not talking about the stirrups
or the bleeding
or the worry she had made a mistake.
I could not kiss her where I wanted.
She was leaving Seattle, the sad bed.
We would try again
another day, in the dry air
if I would kiss her lips only,
if I could lie still beside her,
if I would go with her
over the mountains to find her father.
Rain is not good for me, she swore
on her rosary.
I will shield her from the rain.
No need to mind a little storm,
it blows over.
We go a long way home,
to the peak of Mount Takhoma.
On roads that follow the fall of her hair,
then down. The Lazarus flowers
bloom. People say nothing new,
do not even stare.
It would be best to live by the ocean,
I offer. How would we stay alive?
The rain there intoxicates,
I start, she stops me, I want to go home
while there is time.
She knows the way the coast curves
on her map. In the Rattlesnakes
at least you can see the shadows
over the hills before light falls.
(17 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
A drawn map endures.
Is that why there is none?
She took me out there the first time.
Her mother at the door.
Her father gone.
Her mother said her father was hunting.
All the windows were open
and the door ajar.
The wind was not blowing.
What was he hunting?
The sand had stopped: no more drifting.
He was hunting rattlesnakes.
It was a long way to walk to find rocks.
There was no water.
On the map there would appear
shaped hills at this place,
nothing else, or very little.
Her mother waits with her daughter,
the one who has lived.
She sits me at the table in his place.
She says he is too old to catch the snakes.
He will die if he persists.
It is given to a Mexican wife
to expect dying alone
until her children come home.
Why else would I fear for her daughter?
All I have is inside, waiting.
She says I can use her hands
if my fingers grow gnarled
like a rooster’s claws.
She says I can see through her eyes,
sleep inside her nest.
I tell her I can do nothing but leave
to better my lot
and hers, if she waits.
Her mother asks her to find her father.
Out there she wears huaraches.
I was born in Mexico, you know;
and I: No, I believed it was here.
That is all past, she swears.
She is not talking about the stirrups
or the bleeding
or the worry she had made a mistake.
I could not kiss her where I wanted.
She was leaving Seattle, the sad bed.
We would try again
another day, in the dry air
if I would kiss her lips only,
if I could lie still beside her,
if I would go with her
over the mountains to find her father.
Rain is not good for me, she swore
on her rosary.
I will shield her from the rain.
No need to mind a little storm,
it blows over.
We go a long way home,
to the peak of Mount Takhoma.
On roads that follow the fall of her hair,
then down. The Lazarus flowers
bloom. People say nothing new,
do not even stare.
It would be best to live by the ocean,
I offer. How would we stay alive?
The rain there intoxicates,
I start, she stops me, I want to go home
while there is time.
She knows the way the coast curves
on her map. In the Rattlesnakes
at least you can see the shadows
over the hills before light falls.
(17 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Short History in the Mirror
Vietnam was not American slang yet.
It was still Vietnam.
Not Nam. Vietnamese were not yet gooks,
they were still themselves.
The Jolly Green Giant canned peas, I worked
the graveyard shift,
pitching pea vines with a pitchfork
on a conveyor belt to separate
Green Giants from silage.
From six to two in the morning
I wrestled with such tangle.
I slept well,
those who took over always looked sleepy,
I could not see myself.
When the peas ended I returned
to the orchards. Outside Stockman’s Café
the trucks pulled up like school buses
and all day I went to school.
The migrant workers taught me Spanish words.
It was a language of laughter and love.
It was even before Cuba.
And no one who spoke ingles gave a shit,
let alone laughed if not in derision,
a malady nigh to oblivion.
Ole! the drunks cried in the morning hours
unable to sleep, staying up all night
blubbering hatred only they could hear,
there would be too great a price
otherwise. I was too young to hear them.
In the orchards I repeated the words
in espanol until I heard myself
speaking a cadence not too far from theirs.
I made less money, I listened too hard
when I worked among them. They loved the kid
who planned to go to college.
After that, the warehouse, the canneries;
weekends, between seasons, in the vineyards,
and going to mass to be with Irene
Castenada, who taught me the language
of love with kisses and her slender thighs . . .
on the hill, highest point above the church.
(16 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
It was still Vietnam.
Not Nam. Vietnamese were not yet gooks,
they were still themselves.
The Jolly Green Giant canned peas, I worked
the graveyard shift,
pitching pea vines with a pitchfork
on a conveyor belt to separate
Green Giants from silage.
From six to two in the morning
I wrestled with such tangle.
I slept well,
those who took over always looked sleepy,
I could not see myself.
When the peas ended I returned
to the orchards. Outside Stockman’s Café
the trucks pulled up like school buses
and all day I went to school.
The migrant workers taught me Spanish words.
It was a language of laughter and love.
It was even before Cuba.
And no one who spoke ingles gave a shit,
let alone laughed if not in derision,
a malady nigh to oblivion.
Ole! the drunks cried in the morning hours
unable to sleep, staying up all night
blubbering hatred only they could hear,
there would be too great a price
otherwise. I was too young to hear them.
In the orchards I repeated the words
in espanol until I heard myself
speaking a cadence not too far from theirs.
I made less money, I listened too hard
when I worked among them. They loved the kid
who planned to go to college.
After that, the warehouse, the canneries;
weekends, between seasons, in the vineyards,
and going to mass to be with Irene
Castenada, who taught me the language
of love with kisses and her slender thighs . . .
on the hill, highest point above the church.
(16 July 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Friday, July 15, 2011
You as I
If you as I worry the roots
upending sod in a scramble
to find the seed that did not take
water, the work is to add dirt,
pat it down but keep earth's soil soft,
let the stem rise, new buds appear,
for what does worry do to change
beauty’s face but deepen the lines
waiting to be filled where the years
stir clouds until dark turbulence
arrives, flowers fold their slender
shapes, air spins the warm with the cold
before you as I flee to coasts
where the missing animals are.
(15 July 2011)
upending sod in a scramble
to find the seed that did not take
water, the work is to add dirt,
pat it down but keep earth's soil soft,
let the stem rise, new buds appear,
for what does worry do to change
beauty’s face but deepen the lines
waiting to be filled where the years
stir clouds until dark turbulence
arrives, flowers fold their slender
shapes, air spins the warm with the cold
before you as I flee to coasts
where the missing animals are.
(15 July 2011)
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