Poetry in Motion, Day 6 (Sherman Alexie)

This poem, inscribed by Sherman Alexie to me at a Barnes & Noble appearance, I believe for his collection Ten Little Indians, is excerpted from "Crazy Horse Sleeps":

from Crazy Horse Speaks


I wear the color of my skin
like a brown paper bag
wrapped around a bottle.
Sleeping between
the pages of dictionaries
your language cuts
tears holes in my tongue
until I do not have strength
to use the word "love."
What could it mean
in this city where everyone is
Afraid-of-Horses?

Previous BillyBlog Poetry in Motion posts:

from "My Grandmother's New York Apartment" by Elizabeth Alexander (Day 1)
from "A Bouquet" by Bei Dao (Day 2)
"Separation" by W.S. Merwin (Day 3)
"The Groundfall Pear" by Jane Hirshfield (Day 4)
"For Friendship" by Robert Creeley (Day 5)