Sonnet: Tattoo Tears

Sonnet: Tattoo Tears


1.

No one will believe this story I'm telling, so it must be true.

2.

It's true: the Indian woman with three tears tattooed under her
left eye folded under the weight of her own expectations, after
her real tears failed to convince. No disfigurement is small and
three tears leave you without choices, without hope or grace.
The Indian woman with three tears tattooed under her left eye
shot or stabbed her husband and went to prison for murder. In this,
I cannot find the slightest measure of music. My hands are empty
when I wave Hello, Old Friends to the cancellations of air, to
the inversion of possibilities, to the strange animals haunting
my dreams.

3.

Strange animals haunt my dreams, animals formed wholly by other
animals chasing me through the gallop of my imagination. But
it wasn't Gallup streets I ran through, afraid, and it wasn't
Spokane or Seattle, and maybe I wasn't coming nearer to the
childhood I forgive most often when I lie in bed all day,
refusing to stand and leave the safety of inertia. Most often,
the animals have faces, familiar, like each was a cousin by
marriage or a promise of destruction, like my ancestor's had
chosen me for a twentieth century vision.

4.

A twentieth century vision: my sister in San Francisco, early
70's, with a single tear tattooed under her right eye. She is
pregnant, her dreams protected by the cardboard box she carries
as defense. It's a small kind of medicine. Years later, I search
for her in the newsreels, the black-and-white photographs, the
glossary of a textbook, look for some definition of her
disappearance.

5.

Disappear,child, like a coin in the hands of another reservation
magician. Disappear, mother, into a cable television memory, 40
channels of commercials selling the future. What was I thinking,
sending cash by mail. $ 19.95 for a knife that could cut concrete
and oranges into halves? Disappear, father, as you close your eyes
to sleep in the drive-in theater. What did you tell me? "Movies
are worthless! They're just sequels to my life." Disappear, brother,
into the changing river, salmontravelling beneath the uranium mine,
all of it measured now by half-lives and miles-between-dams.
Disappear, sister, like a paper cut, like a rock thrown through
a window, like a Fourth of July firework.

6.

It's the Fourth of July and every Indian looks into the sky.
Tears explode from their eyes, louder, and brighter than a
bottle rocket. Tears lick their cheeks like a Jimi Hendrix
solo. Tears fall until they build a new bridge across the
Bering Strait. Tears fill up a chipped cup and Big Mom
makes it into instant coffee. Tears echo, tears confuse the
local weathermen, tears the size of golf balls, tears canned
and distributed by the BIA, tears pulled into a hypodermic and
mainlined. Tears sprayed onto a slice of white bread and eaten.
Tears tattooed under the eyes of Indians who belive everything
their mirrors whisper.

7.

Whispering slowly, a pair of pany hose rolled over an ankle
sounds like a promise, like a memory fitted tightly over the
skin: my sister in the mirror braided her hair into wild ponies,
pulled the Goodwill panty hose over her legs and let me rub
my cheek against her calves while she waited for some Indian
boy or other. What did she used to say? Every weekend can be
a powwow if you know what kind of music to play.

8.

What kind of music do you play when drums aren't enough?

9.

The drums aren't loud enough, so the deaf fancydancer stands
strill, scratching at the tears tattooed under both his eyes.
Then, a beer truck roars by outside, shakes the earth like
a drum, and the deaf fancydancer two-steps to a horsepowered
song.

10.

The jukebox in the bar is horsepowered. The street lights
making shadows on the basketball court are horsepowered.
Seymour's new drum is diesel, gets great gas mileage but
stutters when it climbs hills. On the top of Wellpinit
Mountain, I watch for fires, listen to a radio powered
by the ghosts of 1,000 horses, shot by the United States
Cavalry a century ago, last week, yesterday. My cousins
paint red tears under their horse's eyes just before they
run at Playfair Race Track. Last I heard, my cousins are
still waiting for any of their horses to finish, to emerge
from the dust and gallop toward a new beginning.

11.

If I begin this story with the last word, the last spark
of flame left from the trailer fire, will you remember
everything that came before? If I show you the photograph
of my sister just emerged from the sweat house, steam
rising from her body like horses, a single tear tattooed
under her right eye, can you pretend to miss her? If I
tell you her body was found in the ash, the soft edge of
the earth, will you believe she attempted escape but
couldn't lift her head from the pillow? If I show you
the photograph of my sister i her coffin, hair cut short
by the undertaker who never knew she called her hair
"Wild Ponies", will you imagine you loved her?

12.

Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation.

13.

The reservation waits for no one. Acre by acre, it roars
past history, forgiving and forgetting nothing. There are
moments here which can explain your whole life. For instance,
the beer can wedged between bars in the cattle guard predicts
the next car wreck, but it also sounds like an ocean of
betrayal if picked up and held to the ear.

14.

Listen: truth is a strange animal haunting my dreams, my waking.
In the reservation Kmart, 40 televisions erupt in a 20th century
vision; 500 years of bad situation comedies. Measured by the
half hour, the Indian woman with three tears tattoed under her
left eye disappears into the scenery, into the crowd of another
Fourth of July celebration. The soundtrack of her life whispers
some kind of music, but it isn't drums because drums are never
enough. Can you hear canned laughter roaring out of her horse-
powered stereo on the shelf next to her life? What can I tell
you about the beginning of her story that would help you
imagine how much of the reservation she had tattooed across
her skin?


Sherman Alexie..........from The Summer of Black Widows.