Coon Was Here.BY CHIP LIVINGSTON
though that was home Ricky brother I still think is God & pray to bound by half our blood. Mom's firstborn by a non-Indian you came out blond & blue-eyed. I got my Daddy's Choctaw eyes. & eyes are what made Poocha call you Coon. Crazy bastard with all your Indian names. On your headstone it's Ricky. But wolf is what you carried in your blood. Poocha took it straight from God. & whose eyes are bluer than God's? Yet you put Mom's mascara to your eyes. & burning them you tried to brown your blood. Fisting them tattooed you like a ring-tailed coon. From then on Poocha never called you Ricky. But named you Coon, 'cause you were Indian. Then named you again in secret in Indian & told you how your grandma bet the wolf his eyes & won. I miss you so much Ricky, I swear to God. I thought you were smarter than a damn raccoon, letting a bunch of rednecks make you doubt your blood. By 17 you'd made spilling blood a ceremony & finally learned to kick ass like an Indian. You even hung a coon- tail from your Pinto's rearview mirror. Eyes still red from dope & daring God behind your bangs. Then you did it Ricky. You made the papers as a Richard. But I want to write your name in blood on the wall behind Geronimo's Spirits where God took you to rest with the Indians through a western door where no one sees your eyes & no one calls you Coon. I'll write Coon was here & sign it Ricky call you God & mix your blood to paint forever closed your Indian eyes.
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