Camino

The first time I go to Chile we enter the mercado
My tia
Pulls a chess board of mapuche soldiers
Dressed in red
Spaniards dressed in blue
From the dusty bookshelf of a man dressed in red
And speaks of her birth

A product of both,
Her grandmothers crimson tears rolling down los andes
And white men Cowling above them

She will call this strength.
Call it, “sangre sagrado”


“Our white blood is how we found god”
She will say this
with gravel in her shoes as we walk
The 10 miles down antonio varas

She will step
with the same limp as her grandmothers
Who’s blood still nourishes this soil.

How her feet ache,
How her raw heels fill la serena
With red
With mercury
Blood.
That made the ocean fast of the salted flesh of men.

Tia will speak of my hair next
“Culpa de su padre”
She will say,
Fault of your fathers
At a

I nod in silence.
We March

A sweaty husbands palm,
Rips its way through my scalp
He
Collects my skin beneath his fingernails
Food,
To take home and feed to his sons.

My family buries me beneath their tongues
To taste what the beginning of a bloodline feels like
 
To see if its dirt
Or the bottom of our grandmothers feet

Call me oveja
Alpaca
Lama
Spoiled mule
Lucky pack animal
 
“What a fine cloak you will make”