FADING TO ZERO

I’m often daydreamed in a fluted memory
Of tribes which once were nations.
Now, they tapestry in make-shift souvenir dolls
Sold by those who clutch a cloud of my identity;
Mixed African and white, held to their heritage
Mostly by the geography of reservations…
Some break cheap wine bottles
On rusty wrecked tireless cars
Tilting inebriated in their hopelessness
Reflected in their socket stares
Of silence, and broken headlights looking blind from birth…
Strangers tell me I have good color
And I laugh because I never take the sun in summer.
I shave less frequently than others
Above my lip and on my chin,
And hardly ever razor
The few turkey hairs sprouting from my face…
I’m a hybrid of unresolved bastardy,
Fractioned into superficial evidence
Like a mongrel whose one or two distinctive traits
Tie it to a pedigree lost somewhere
In an elusive past…
All my progeny will forget the flute
Or feathered headdress,
As they become engulfed inside guitars
Strumming an alien legacy.