My Name's Not Rodriguez.

• Author: Rodriguez, Luis J.
• Position: Poem

My Name's Not Rodriguez It is a sigh of climbing feet, the lather of gold lust, the slave masters' religion with crippled hands gripping greed's tail. My name's not Rodriguez. It's an Indian mother's noiseless cry, a warrior's saliva on arrow tip, a jaguar's claw, a woman's enticing contours on volcanic rock. My real name's the ash of memory from burned trees. It's the three-year-old child wandering in the plain and shot by U.S. Cavalry in the Sand Creek massacre. I'm Geronimo's yell into the canyons of the old ones. I'm the Comanche scout; the Raramuri shaman in a soiled bandanna running in the wretched rain. I'm called Rodriguez and my tears leave rivers of salt. I'm Rodriguez and my skin dries on the bones. I'm Rodriguez and a diseased laughter enters the pores. I'm Rodriguez and my father's insanity blocks every passageway, scorching the walls of every dwelling. My name's not Rodriguez; it's a fiber in the wind, it's what oceans have immersed, it's what's graceful and sublime over the top of peaks, what grows red in desert sands. It's the crawling life, the watery breaths between ledges. It's taut...