Margo Tamez
(she/her/hers/they) is a Ndé Dene [Lipan Apache, Dene nation] poet and historian. Born in her ancestral KónítsaįįgokÍyąą, (Big Water Peoples’ Country), present-day encompassing S & SW Texas and northeastern Mexico, she grew up in remote, rural and urban Lipan-Jumano Apache kinship communities throughout the Pecos, Colorado, San Antonio, Trinity, Nueces, Frio, Guadalupe, and Rio Grande River areas.
In these poems selected by Chapter House, Tamez situates Ndé Dene scenes of intimacy, constraint, and containment at the intersections of memory, militarization, Americanization erasing Indigenous women’s place-making, and her concern with care, relationality, and dissident silence as a way in which Indigenous women in militarized spaces navigate heteropatriarchal assimilation, horror, and fragmentation.
Tamez is the author of Raven Eye, Naked Wanting, and Alleys & Allies. A forthcoming book, FATHER | GENOCIDE, (Turtle Point Press, available August, 2021), draws out a dimension of her historical and legal research privileging Ndé Dene life experiences, collective memory, and decolonial narratives. In this collection, Tamez amplifies the voices, knowledge, and oral tradition to chisel into relief the transgenerational effects of imperialism, colonialism, and American genocide on Lipan Apache boys and men. Through the lens of survivance and refusal, she interrogates the serious consequences of transgenerational settler colonialism on Indigenous fatherhood, manhood and belonging in dystopic scenes of Indigenous abjection.
sunday.1
for Erik
We stretch sleep to 8 o’clock
doves coo clap wings,
calling to nest mate.
I
glide bare arc of foot
over pillow slopes
warm-milk scent
in
sheets not washed two weeks,
our cum, dream, snores, drool, dandruff
thoughts we don’t say
down
so family can move forward
day to day re-creating
a word.
sunday.2
In second-gear, I hear him cruise
up the road in a third-hand
’91 Chevy,
reclaimed waste-stream
gravel pops under
weight of tires needing air.
His tune on the FM dial
crackling & spitting out of Tucson
amplifying radio sky
stillness
before monsoon.
Sunday.3
I hear your feet touch wood floor
& those Jesus-sandals thud wall
where you kick them
I give you
the look.
Nape of your neck scent
off-brand cigarettes
soil
pressed
into cracks of your callused fingers,
scent of toads singing
entice toad mates to flop & slide into canals lining melon fields,
irrigation water soaking
frayed hems of your jeans,
hints of herbicides wafting on breeze
sweet dew
your moustache honey melon drips
you cut from vine to taste
while watering the corn early
at dawn
Sunday.4
I taste star
on the miniscule hairs
nape of your neck
skin creases mark years
depth effort daily return
to me the kids our issues things
you don’t say your work
keeps cohesion in place
& mine propels movement.
sunday.5
Under sheets her voice
closes a gap
I hear her fingers
slide up
behind her head
reaching
for a rail
to pull grasps
arcs
strains
when she muzzles
a release
kids and neighbors
can’t hear.
sunday.6
The neighbor on the next farm over
is a fucking god-appointed alarm clock
gleeful, with an oom-pah band
booming
and wants to be seen
flaunts his aesthetic
[Everyone be woke!] We know
grapes, melons, & corn
need weeding. Nobody need say
anything.
We got it.
Sunday.7
The rural unincorporated militarized zone
independently owned grocer opened early,
transfiguring his space into bustling lines.
Early risers clutching plastic grocery baskets
perusing his aisles.
Examining the quality & price of brisket, June corn,
bananas, and six-packs.
sunday.8
Mr. oom-pah chicken scratch
swap-meet -shades polarized -oil slicks
gasses up tank at #2.
Tilts and smiles up to Mr. hot god
straight white teeth coaxing
a muffled giggle from mtf trans
Sophie pulls her debit card out
on the other side of the gas bar
pouty lips metallic blue
match her toenails.
sunday.9
A cantaloupe coral arc of light above the farm
glows less toxic in this slumber haze. I hear
him coming hear the pressured
air, hot gurgles, and clucking
of the auto drip coffee maker going off.
sunday.10
Salmon swaggers for everyone
arches his back and swallows
the umber between her legs
lips, the gel flush
then plunges
drenched
sunday.11
Salmon holds names, memory, truth & images.
Shimmies grief her ocean
awash in liminal
cohesion and flux.