Call & Response Between Colonizer & Colonized

Call the medicine man, call the fool, call the owl—

Tecolote, tecolote, tecolote.

I’ve held the bird so long it can no longer cry.

Lean is my nest and colorless.

Can you see your face?

Always a god behind the mask.

Savage layers, intestinal idols.

Depths that cannot be uttered.

Was there already a war before the soldiers arrived?

The shield moves first with feathers, then with snakes.

Are you born slave or tyrant?

I am vanishing on the threshold.

And did they change your language?

Look—how odd the word, a pair of eyes

and a harsh sound. Interruption—

Trance first, then entrance.