I remember buckskins,
the white skin hiding white skin
from white skin.
I remember red paint and black stinky mud;
I remember arrowhead and warclub
and gunpowder;
white skin making artifacts
to hide from white skin.
I remember ghosts of teepees
spread across the land
mouths open wide,
fiery screams flashing in the dark,
bony desperate arms thrown up at the stars,
“save us from this white skin
sleeping inside our white skin.”
Silent, contrasting night,
mocking moon
with its white, white skin.
In the river, in the dark,
I burst from tepid depths,
my white skin in the pale light
flashing across the desert
like lightning.

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