[SPEAKING MOJAVE]
Just so you know, there's no method to this madness.
This is my set list, all scribbled up and put together.
So at our dinner, I sat next to Barbara,
and we had a conversation about some of the roads she
and her son had traveled coming across the country.
And those were also roads I had traveled,
because I live in Fort Mojave, Arizona.
Mojave Valley, Arizona.
And so we had made some of those same trips.
And it just feels very special tonight
to know that I also share a different path with her son
and the path of being a poet who's
trying to find their voice and their self as a writer.
So I'm really glad to be here.
Boyer, thank you so much for making this possible.
Tyler.
Cybele.
I love Cybele the name, because I lived in Madrid
for a little while.
And just because I'm trying to keep up with Eduardo
and his cross, it's like--
yeah, you know Madrid, that place way far away.
But when Real Madrid, when they win, that's the plaza
they go to.
That's the fountain that they go to and celebrate, is the--
with, yeah, so, OK.
So we're even now, I feel like.
So I can--
I'm going to go ahead and start with--
I mean, we've had a lot of conversations.
I've been here one evening.
I came in last night.
And we've talked with some classes
and some teachers of classes.
And so, I'm going to try and gear my reading a little bit
towards some of the questions the students had.
And I know in one of the high school classes,
there were some students who were also Native
and who had different type-- whether it's
Yaqui or any type of Indigenous blood.
So I'm going to go ahead and start--
it's an oldie but goodie, I guess.
"Hand-Me-Down Halloween."
"The year we moved off the reservation, a white boy
up the street gave me a green trash bag fat
with corduroys, bright-colored shirts, and a two piece
Tonto costume.
Turquoise thunderbird on the chest.
Shirt and pants the color of my grandmother's skin--
reddish brown.
My mother's skin-- brown-red skin.
My mother's boyfriend laughed.
Said, now, I was a fake Indian.
Look at her now.
Your Indin girl is a fake Indin.
My first Halloween off the reservation,
white Jeremiah told all his white friends
that I was wearing his old costume--
a hand-me-down.
I looked at my hands.
All them whites laughed at me.
Called me half-breed.
Threw Tootsie Rolls at the half-breed, me.
Later, darker in the night at white Jeremiah's front door,
trick or treat, I made a good little Indian, his father said.
Now don't you make a good little Indian?
He gave me a Tootsie Roll.
More night came darker, darker.
Mothers gathered their white kids from the dark.
My dark mother gathered empty cans
while I waited to gather my white kid.
I waited to gather white Jeremiah.
He was the skeleton walking past my house, a glowing skull
and ribs.
I ran and tackled his white bones in the street.
His candy spilled out like a million pinto beans.
Asphalt tore my brown-red skin knees.
I hit him harder and harder, wider and harder.
He cried for his mama.
I put my fist-me-downs again and again and down.
He cried for that white.
She came running.
She swung me off him, dug nails into my wrists,
pulled me to my front door.
Yelled at her white kid to go wait at home.
Go wait at home, Jeremiah.
Mama will take care of this.
She was ready to take care of this, to pound on my door.
But no trick or treat.
My door was already open.
And before that white could speak or knock or put her hands
down on my door, my mother told her to take her hands off
of me.
Take your fucking hands off my girl.
My mother stepped or fell toward that white.
I don't remember what happened next.
I don't remember that white mama leaving, but I know she did.
My mother's boyfriend said, well,
Kimosabe, you ruined your costume.
Well, Kimosabe, you fucked up your costume.
My first Halloween off the reservation, my mother
said, maybe next year, you can be a little Tinkerbell
or something.
Now go get that white boy's candy.
It's in the road."
[LAUGHTER]
I'm glad you guys stayed.
I read that in Des Moines, Iowa, and lost half of my audience.
[LAUGHTER]
They left very noisily as well.