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My name is Michael, it is the sign of the archangel, the preferred name of mothers of a nation as affirmed by the annual opinion polls, the who's hot/what's not new year's cycle of ritual trivial. Mojo Michael, OShowMocho, the older one, painted (they say) to resemble a woman. So be it. In my sister's story I am an angel who must learn to speak, a child given whiskey (uisce beatha), water of life, as among my grandfather's people when a new tooth bound in the jaw, the gums flaring like fiery hills about to give birth to the moon). My place is with the children. For me, all of my life spent among the elders, this is a great satisfaction, to be carried on the back of the uncles. I spent the whole morning walking around in the sun, her paper in my hand (my sister's story), learning the months of the year, this zocolo, trying to sound the names of the ixiptla, the thorny syllables of the Huitznahuac (a brother's place), learning her ways around this place where she, too, does not belong, where none of us do, neither my sister, nor my lover (sister to my sister), place of the Nahuatl, Mexica, feather, bell, serrated shell knife. The names of places are like bramble, thatch, weave. My tongue cannot learn them. I linger here in the cold northeast, a man among children, a child among women, molding bread into dolls between my fingers. |
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