HISTORY LESSON

I imagined us a nation

because our house

was our corner of the world.

Of course, it was

your house, and my world.

Remember when those two

large paintings arrived?

I was so scared. Inside

those boxes were all your

conspiracies. How secretive

I was, agent against history,

the newest New Yorker

in New Mexico, revolting

against a past that wasn’t

mine, scoffing at Santa Fe,

struggling to understand

its dust, so unimpressed

by its art collectors and its

architecture. It’s hard to

hike in Hender Scheme,

not to scuff heels

in hills. What’s in the attic

but a vacuum-packed

subconscious, a few

moldy berries of memory,

a few buried Members Only

jackets. Let us not keep

the cellar full of boxes

untouched. Let us not keep

the paintings of Indians hidden.