Think one-drop rule. Prove race in blood.
Each tribe, different rules. On each reservation the degree/
fraction is set you must be

¼ of the tribal blood in order to be
member, be recognized. From the beginning we grow
up knowing we are fragmented,

a life carved into quarters
and eighths of sorrow, faith, and grief. We are broken
into phases, the moon waning, never

waxing, in our fullness. Love’s symptoms
became those of colonial disease (blood quantum),
always piecing ourselves together

to find an identity resembling wholeness.
If we keep mixing ourselves with each new baby, each new
love - making lessening blood

quantum, eliminating us
one half at a time. Our brokenness
navigates like a compass

danger destined. Drawn to each other,
the deep-rooted sadness of so many things, passed down
through the body, ancestral memory, trying

to exist in two worlds. Blood
presses at the floorboards, every step we take, it’s ingrained
in the earth this land is your land

this land is. My body’s mosaic landscape contains
memories passed down in our bones. When we kiss,
we travel time – history exists in our fingertips,

colonization lingers on our lips. In love,
we are countries colliding borders, and who wants to
spend a lifetime at war.