Swerve

behind my grandmother’s sister

in church and told her

the percentage of Indian

in her blood, calling it out

over the white pews.

I wonder what made

him want to count it

like coins or a grade.

I wish I could hear him

now when I think of her

saying that all

the Wampanoag blood

in her body would

fit in one finger,

discounting the percentage

it seemed, but why was she

such a historian, tracing

the genealogy of the last

Wampanoag up to her own

children, typing it all on see-through

paper? Maybe like me

she felt a little self-conscious

caring about what

we’re made of

instead of simply being

satisfied dressing

our bodies and driving

them around.

Maybe she felt shy

for loving someone

she’d never met, I mean

I do. I think of the knife

cutting into flesh

and the fork carrying it

I always think

of that, the scythe-

like movement,

single motion, a swerve.

I think of my relative, the last

Wampanoag in the town,

walking the streets

with a dollar

the town gave him.

Even then what would

a dollar buy, a finger

of land? If an Indian

could have bought land.

I think of walking

into the almshouse. The alms

falling like figs from trees,

something to gnaw on.

I think of the first time

of thanks

before it had a name,

when it was just some

relatives of mine keeping

some relatives of yours

alive through a cold winter,

people stupid enough

to take food from a graveyard,

food meant for the dead.