This poem is dedicated to Sherman Alexie whose poem, “13/16” begins with:
“I cut my self into sixteen equal pieces…”
My grandson cuts himself into 16 equal pieces:
4/16 Urhobo from Africa
4/16 Spanish from Spain
4/16 other European—two Swiss
German great great-grandfathers
(Werth and Kaiser), Irish, English
and who knows what
3/16 Mexican—whatever mixtures that may be
1/16 Navaho
Who am I? What am I?
Who are you? What are you?
Do we really know?
Who sets the rules?
-white men
-black
-Indian
-Native American
-Irish
-English
-German
from where and for whom?
He looks Navaho:
-blue black straight hair,
-pale brown skin,
-obsidian eyes.
One four year old girl asks him,
“Are you an American Indian?”
His six your old self says nothing.
She repeats,
“Are you an American Indian?”
He says, “It’s complicated.
The Navaho won’t claim him, too little blood.
He needs ¼ , not 1/16.
Caddo and Fort Sill Apache allow 1/16, not Navahos.
¼ blood is for
-Sioux
-Cheyenne
-Kiowa
-Navaho
1/8 works for Comanche and Pawnee.
Some Cherokees only want a Cherokee ancestor.
But he is none of those.
Is he Navaho?
Is he white?
The Old South goes by the one drop rule:
one drop of Negro…
Is a person with 99/100 percent white
and 1/100 black , black?
Who says?
Kids at school ask, What are you?”
He tells them.
They say, “You’re lying!”
I only know specifically about two ancestors,
the Swiss Germans.
Another great grandfather disappeared during the Civil War.
I don’t even know his name.
Who am I?
Who are you?
I think I’ll get a DNA test.
Then I’ll know how many pieces I need to cut myself into.
writingontherim 