For someone who shouldn't have had to live and die like that.

A Man

I live here.
Nights I walk
Amidst glass cases –
Manikins in feathered dress
Bowls, awls, baskets laid out
Silent, on black velvet.
When I move in close
My own ghost-face
Stares back at me from the glass.

With the day
The people come.
Time has taught me not to fear them.
They come for me,
Carry flakes of me home
In the black boxes of cameras,
In the arrowheads I chip for their children.

For money
I follow the janitor,
Gather dropped nails.
Sweep floors, polish
Bright, blind, eyes
Of puma, lynx
And eagle.

I shop for food on Irving Street,
Awash in the thrum
Of trolleys and cars,
Babble and clatter of pedestrians.
There is very little here to remind me
Of who I am.

I left my name
On the mountain.
On the dead lips of my sister. I
Cannot forget.
I will not speak it.
They call me Ishi.
“A man.”
They do not know who I am.

For twenty-five years
We lived, invisible.
Wary as all who are hunted. Exiles
From Earth, stepping
Stone to stone to
Hide our passage.
Creekbeds for footpaths.
We learned from lizards
The quick, bellyscuttle
Under tangled Mesquite.

I am no longer
The man who lived
With the final few
On the slopes of Mount Lassen.
I am one of these creatures
Molded in poses,
Mimicry of life.

These tools no hand make use of,
Displayed in glass boxes -
Their purpose, their names
Forgotten.,

Susannah Carlson-Lagunas Eisner