I'm mostly going to be reading new things,
and then I think I'll try and hit a couple poems that we
talked about in the class, so.
But these are part of my second book.
I used to go to a crane sanctuary in Kearney, Nebraska
to watch the sandhill cranes migrate.
And so it was a little bit like a pilgrimage because, you know,
I had to drive to Las Vegas to get on the plane,
and then we had to fly into Kearney, which
is this little-- you had to fly in a little tiny plane
to Kearney, and it seemed like it took forever to get there.
And then, after I did that for three years, one of my elders
told me that you can actually just go to Willcox, Arizona,
to see that happen.
So nobody told me that.
So you know, I was young, I was looking for something
to pilgrimage towards.
"Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera."
"I had a few days left of my stay
at the crane sanctuary in Kearney, Nebraska,
when my brother called.
It was 3:24 AM.
It's me, he said, It's your brother.
He had taken apart another Polaroid camera
and needed me to explain how to put it back together.
His voice was a snare drum, knocking and quick.
He was crying.
I didn't want to wake the other visitors,
and I knew he'd keep calling, hour after hour,
day after day, lifetime after a miserable
lifetime, until I answered.
I slid out of bed.
Just tell me what to do.
You know what to do, he pleaded.
I should know how to help my brother by now.
He and I have had this exact conversation before--
if I love him, if I really love him,
why haven't I learned to reassemble a Polaroid camera?
Instead, I told him about the sandhill cranes,
the way they dance-- moving into and giving way to one another,
bowing down, cresting and collapsing their wings,
necks and shoulders silver curls of smoky rhythm--
but he didn't believe me.
My brother believes the mafia placed a transmitter deep
within his Polaroid camera, but he can't
believe in dancing cranes.
You think this is a joke?
he whispers.
These are fucking Mafiosos I'm talking about.
You're probably next.
He hung up on me.
When the light went dead, I caught my reflection
in the sliding glass door.
I was standing in a strange kitchen, in front of a sink,
in my underwear.
I have skinny legs and big feet--
I resemble a crane.
That dawn, I aimed my digital camera at the sky until
the last of an island of late-rising cranes lifted
into the metallic air--
I couldn't take my eyes from the barrel of lens,
my finger, fast trigger against the black skeleton
of the camera.
I wondered what it would look like cracked
open to its upside-down mirrors and shiny levers,
how many screws there were, how many lantern-lit cranes might
come unfurling out of that cage.
I wondered what I would look like if the darkened chambers
of my body were unlocked.
What streams of light might escape me and reveal
about the things I collect and hide,
and is there a difference between aperture and wound.
Mostly, I wondered where my brother
keeps getting those goddamned Polaroid cameras."