Face (Hanging Loose Press, poetry) is ax/not ax/poleax, as in still S. Alexie. His personae (will contain biographical elements of the author) have one leg stuck in White Batter (all connotations) of mainstream academia/book/laugh at nothing/muttering $peaking tours and one shakily afoot “the rez.” The third leg is a ghost leg. Tear ducts in its toenails, Andrew fucking nebulous Jackson. Like a man standing in two canoes (never try this), sway and suffer consequences. The question—in the words of another poet noticing Halle Berry dragging along the Very First Oscar (2002!) like a battleship anchor—is whether speaker will crust and sugar over, sag like a heavy load, or, well, explode. I celebrate the men who preceded me. Face has numbers in a burlap sack (math, as history, as stat, as in right now. As in statistics): 1492, 15 million Native Americans. 1892, 750,000. 2002, 1.8 million. Look up Pamunkey, an odd word. Face, do you feel yourself rowing against the current/into the past, like White Fitzgerald? Hypothermia. Face, blanket, and not blanket. Mask. Shroud. OK, speak.

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