"Orchid Moon” by Crisosto Apache

in the lull of an evening veil, 

your face appears as apparition. 

your hand lifts to a tide 

of Moon Orchids

high in a mountain canyon I slept 

underneath an aspen grove, with intent 

to ease the release of a reluctant memory

breezes may exhume my mind,

but not like the impressionable

confidence of your caress

doubt still lingers upon my skin 

along with the insurmountable death 

you carry inside your blood. 

one day when I wake 

from my disregarding slumber 

I will notice your stance 

in that silhouette garb 

the sound of crushing gravel 

beneath my feet disturbs 

the soft radiating orchid petals 

that cringe beneath the moonlight

I am reminded of lunar displays 

inside folds of opaque petals 

blink one eye and the moon is there,

blink the other and it disappears completely

slide of fingers on both eye lids

views the moon in all its brightness

in this perpetual gaze upon this moon,  

her light shine upon these forbidding eyes 

— I then become her

About Crisosto Apache
(x) Gender Nonconforming

Crisosto Apache is originally from Mescalero, New Mexico (US), on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, currently lives in the Denver metro area in Colorado. Cris is Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné (Navajo) of the 'Áshįįhí (Salt Clan) born for the Kinyaa'áanii (Towering House Clan) and is Assistant Professor of English at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Cris holds an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cris is also the Associate Poetry Editor for The Offing Magazine. Crisosto’s debut collection GENESIS (Lost Alphabet) stems from the vestiges of memory and cultural identity of a self-emergence as language, body, and cosmology.

http://crisostoapache.com/
@crisosto_apache