A NIGHTMARE OF COLOR

by Dick Altman

 

 

As reports come out across the country of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining Native Americans, a couple dozen New Mexico lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow tribal citizens to update their state-issued IDs to reflect their enrollment status. House Bill 20 would give people enrolled in a federally recognized tribe the option to request a “distinguishing mark” identifying them as Native American on their driver’s license or other identification cards. A similar law passed in Arizona last year went into effect in January. On a sample license posted online by that state’s Motor Vehicle Division, “Native American” is written on the bottom left side of the card. —New Mexico In Depth, February 12, 2026

Northern New Mexico

In my mind

it begins,

a Pow Wow

of dance,

chant,

drum,

lofting

my Anglo dreams

to heights

of ritual

more ancient

than Columbus.

Despite the festive air,

masked figures,

I don’t

recognize as Native,

badged and holstered,

lurk in the shadows,

beyond

the drum circle—

waiting.

*

I try to sense,

living as I do,

in Indian Country,

what you,

a Native American,

feel like

awakening now

to a face

in the mirror,

that greets

morning’s light,

not with a smile,

but fear

your complexion,

perhaps only a shade

darker than mine,

might find you

in ICE’s

angry grasp,

two steps away

from expulsion.

*

Identity docs,

once sacred sources

of pride,

and connection,

sat vaulted

in your tribal home,

rarely,

if ever,

in need

of exposure,

to the world

outside.

Now,

I’m told,

you dare not leave

the reservation,

without

your paper shields

of origin.

*

Your biggest fear—

how could I not feel

the same—

likely separation

from your children,

an old fear,

dating back

to early last

century,

when federal agents,

as if yesterday,

drag off

Native offspring

to attend

schools,

to acquire

more “whiteness”.

A curriculum

leading often

to forced labor

and early death,

as history’s

numerous

graves attest.

*

I hesitate,

these days,

to stroll

the town square,

birthed

and sustained

by Puebloans

like  yourself,

long before

the arrival

of Europeans.

I reel,

with broken heart,

as ICE grabs you

off the street,

to challenge

your sovereign right,

stretching back

a thousand years,

to call America

home.

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press.  Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 290 poems, published on four continents.

PORTRAIT OF WARPAINT

Pencil on paper with typed spoken word by Deidra Suwanee Dees

Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees is Director/Tribal Archivist at Poarch Band of Creek Indians. She teaches Native American Studies at the University of South Alabama, initiated by the Tribe. She earned her doctorate at Harvard. She is the author of a chapbook, Vision Lines: Native American Decolonizing Literature. Heleswv heres, mvto.

IN THE CLASSROOM

by LouAnn Shepard Muhm

I mention Eric Garner.

All the usual tropes are in attendance.

This was not his only arrest, is in the front row,
wondering when we will get back to
what matters: graded things, things with points.
Her anxiety manifests in demands for rubrics
and in her bouncing leg, her rolling eyes.
She does things right, has no mercy
for digression, for mistake.
She will go home tonight and listen
to her brother and her father fight,
each so disappointed in the other’s
imperfection.

Next to her sits if he hadn’t been doing anything wrong
nothing would have happened to him,
fingering the cross she wears,
this Catholic girl who wants to be a nun
but likes a boy in class. It pains me
to watch her clumsy, unsuccessful bids.
The war inside her is constant
and unrelenting, but she has the naïve
trust in the world that so few
sixteen-year-old girls have anymore.
It’s hard not to envy her,
harder not to cringe against
the ways her knowledge may come.

Everybody knows not to talk back
to a police officer no matter what
is headed for the military, and
I can feel him wondering
what he would do:
chokehold or no chokehold,
chokehold or no chokehold,
can feel the adrenaline jolting him
at the thought, graduation
only two months away
and everything so suddenly looming.

It’s sad, but I don’t see how
that makes it OK to riot
keeps looking at his phone,
waiting for his girl to text him
from the math class three doors down,
waiting for her to tell him
where they can go later to fuck,
waiting for her to confirm that they will
again today, after practice, as they do
whenever they can, because they can
and because they are young
and because it is new
and all-consuming.

Maybe there’s a lot of racism
in other places, but
I just don’t see it here
has a hard time sitting in the desk
at six-foot-two, and wonders
how long he can lift
in the weight room after school
and still get his chores done before dark.

Meanwhile, just last year two people
in this class called me nigger
slides down in her chair,
trying to disappear out of this
conversation that is focused on her
without being focused on her,
as so many conversations have been

and stop asking me if I live on the rez
remains silent as always,
pulls the hood of his sweatshirt
further down his forehead,
turns his music
up.

LouAnn Shepard Muhm is a poet and teacher from northern Minnesota. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, and she was a finalist for the Creekwalker Poetry Prize  and the Late Blooms Postcard Series.  Muhm is a two-time recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant in Poetry and has been awarded scholarships from the Key West Literary Seminar, Vermont Studio Center, and Sierra Nevada College. Her chapbook Dear Immovable was published in 2006 by Pudding House Press, and her full-length poetry collection Breaking the Glass (Loonfeather Press, 2008) was a finalist for the Midwest Book Award in Poetry.  Muhm holds a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Sierra Nevada College, and was recently granted an 18-month Artist's Fellowship by the Region 2 Arts Council of Minnesota.