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 collared shirts

& a two-piece / Tonto / costume
turquoise thunderbird on the chest
shirt & pants

the color of my grandmother's skin / reddish-brown /
my mother's skin / brown-redskin /
My mother's boyfriend laughed

said now I was a / fake / Indian
look-it her now yer / Indin / girl is a / fake / In-din
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 / tricker treat /

I made a / good / little Injun his father said
now don't you make a /good / little Injun
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 & 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 / whiter / and harder
He cried for his momma

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 wrist
pulled me to my front door
yelled at her / white / kid to go wait at home

go wait at home Jeremiah, Momma will take care of this
She was ready / to take care of this /
to pound on my door but no / tricker 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
taker / fuck-king / 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 / momma leaving
/ but I know she did /

My mother's boyfriend said
well / Kimosabe / you ruined your costume
wull / Kimo-sa-be / you fuckt up yer costume

My first Halloween
off / the reservation /
my mother said / maybe / next year

you can be a little Tinker Bell / or something /
now go git that /white / boy's can-dee
—iss-in the road





Poem reprinted from When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), with the permission of the author. All Rights Reserved.