A Mutt's Petition

"In darkness when all cats are equally black, I move as gracefully as anyone."
-from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

My foray into storytelling has led me to the
rather disconcerting conclusion that I have
no tradition. My father's heritage is all Sicilian,
which might have meant more more had I been raised
with a cannoli in my moth or a coppola on my head.
And my mother knows only that because of the lay
of our rears and our thighs, we must have some black ancestry
in us somewhere. I lived for seventeen years
to the east of Cajun heartland and to the
west of New Orleans, close enough to be teased
by the streaming smells of file and andouille,
but not quite close enough to change the alkalinity
of my blood. My speech, besides
being peppered with the occasional "y'all,"
is not heavily accented. I cannot
claim Brer Rabbit, any more than I can claim
Marie Leveau, any more than I can claim
zydeco, any more than I can dare someone
to go in against me when death is on the line.
These things are not mine, not in the way I want them to be.
I may learn them, but they are not native to my soul.
My petition is this: my blood does run so it
must run with something. I have bones so there
must be something in them. I hereby request permission
from my ancestors to invite any bits of
someone else's heritage to run in my veins.
Let me welcome Coyote and Loki and
Puck and Anansi. Let me make it known
that Erzulie Dantor and Sita and Nasreddin
and Sedna may always have a place in my pocket.

Don't Think About Elephants

I stare and I stare and I unfocus
my eyes, and maybe if I squint, I can
imagine being in the foreground of a painting
wherein a naked woman gazes longingly out of
her frame, and behind her is painted the life
she wants
and it’s hers

and she can have it

but she doesn’t know
how to take it so
she keeps staring.

Maybe she’s watching for elephants.