Bereft of stars, the girl heads for open country, ready to be called “darlin’” by every stranger, never to imagine at her new job a star could be coming toward her, pinned to the chest of a “real-live” Sheriff. “Howdy,” he drawls, with a dip of his hat, as the Manager squires her over to him. While the Law puts his guns on the table, the Manager whispers, “Girl, see how special you are,” not telling her every new chicken gets plucked by the Sheriff and, next week, by his Deputy. No chance to ask Sally Ann’s advice— one of the other night-shift masseuses— home again with her croupy kid. As soon as he’s undressed, he says, “Watch your step, girlie, keep me happy; we don’t like your kind here.” He spreads out like a map. She starts softly on his shoulders, fingers shaking, until he growls, “Harder.” She digs into his flesh, travels down the Jersey coast of his arm, through Pennsylvania onto Kansas, then down Oklahoma to the flat, pink butt of Texas, with its balls hanging over into Mexico. “I’m not happy yet,” he grunts, flips over, forces her hand like a noose ‘round his squat cock. “I’ll see you next week,” he says when he’s done. She shoves her things in a bag and bolts. “You’ll be back,” the Manager says, unaware she has another job to go to in the morning and sensible shoes.

(Acoma Pueblo, located on the Acoma Indian Reservation, is the “oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States.”) In minutes the tour bus is up four hundred feet at the top of the sandstone mesa and our guide, Doris, proudly shows us around her church, a mixture of sainted and earthly symbols. We walk through Acoma Pueblo, past tribe members standing behind tables in front of adobes, patiently explaining that some pottery pieces are from traditional molds, some their own designs. I imagine a Great Creator in the Sky drawing the Acoma to withstand sweeping wind, giving them short stature, round faces, hips solid and square; unlike me and my sister, with angular faces and narrow waists, rounding down to spider-legged terrain. We continue our tour, come to the traditional square. Doris invites us all to return for the annual Feast of San Estevan, with a special invite to join her and son and grandchildren at home for a meal after the celebration. Scenes of a grandma cooking send me back to our Brooklyn bubbe, her skin smelling of sugar, taking warm cheese strudel out of the oven, and I tell Doris that I realize my little Grandma looked very much like her, that she’d been plucked from Eastern Europe, possibly Russia, and re-planted across ocean. Doris replies, sitting at the base of a tree, its giant roots exposed, that tribes came here across the Bering Strait, but remember, she says, “The road goes both ways.” She guides us back to the bus. I step off, my olive skin warm in the sun, and take a long look back up toward the mesa, Acoma Pueblo hidden behind a rim of rocks, protected.

(After 9/11/2001, many had to wear dust masks by the World Trade Center.) How can you say we are sisters? you ask me. Sister, we are both covered toe to head, eyes left exposed to see what is done to us, to our world; I in my dust mask and hood, you in your burka. Are we not both covered because of the eagles who have flown off with our wings, who patrol our sex? The burka was my birth caul, you tell me. Sister, I know that my face covering is temporary, keeping out ash and chemicals unleashed by hate on 9/11. Yet, the mask that is my face is always there. Long ago, I came out of the dark, threw off my long, navy pleated skirt, white blouse with Peter Pan collar, bared my legs and thighs – chaos – cars careened, bicyclists bumped into buses, strolling men turned, followed me, stored my image to play over and over. What is imagined under your shroud has tied a country in knots, so inflamed their men that only cloth engulfing you could put out their burning. I too know the power of flesh, have uncovered it to gain favor. I’ve played the pawn, twisted my feet onto spikes, flaunting my calves and buttocks, until I learned that gifts received for the external invade your soul, extract payment. I am not a naked devil; you are not a covered devil. We have both dreamt of coming back as men, We have both sworn, If I were a man… I’ve been learning to break down the door between men and women, woman and woman, replace these dreams with ones of being more of a woman, the skin over my heart and mind becoming transparent, the better to see you, my Sister.

We were thirteen-year old High School Freshmen from the Brooklyn projects, good Jewish girls with good grades trying to be bad. Carol Correlowitz, the leader of our duo, six months older than me, Maddi, decided we should try out for the sorority, Rho Sigma Tau, headed by leather-jacketed, Italian girls, Jefferson High Seniors. They chain-smoked menthol cigarettes so strong, their basement headquarters over by New Lots Avenue smelled like a hundred peppermint patties. We didn’t dare tell our mothers about the leather jackets, the tough-Italian-girl-smoking part either. Every morning before school, Carol brushed her shiny black pageboy one hundred times (I had the requisite flip). After school, she combed the teen magazines, coaching me in the rolling up and down of my pleated skirt - I waited all day for Carol Correlowitz’s “tips for temptresses.” “Gotta reel them in, Maddi” she always said. Who knows why Rho Sigma Tau wanted us to pledge? Maybe it was for our smarts, maybe for our innocence. Cut to Hell Night one month later: dressed as black cats, tails to the ground, blindfolded, we were led onto the #2 IRT, dumped at the entrance to the Prospect Park Zoo. Assignment: beg for carfare, be back at the sorority house by ten. Three long hours after a bunch of sailors’ dimes and trouble, we returned to war whoops and paddles, were taken shaking one by one into the back room, emerged covered in lipstick kisses, sporting shiny new sorority pins and twelve older sisters. It was official: we were in and we were bad. Darlene, the President, the oldest one with the biggest hair, pushed us into the pillow-covered front room with red lights, “Soldier Boy” and “Chances Are” playing over and over. The skinny guys from Phi Delt bellowed, “Show us why your Sorority letters spell P-E-T.” One of them grabbing my right breast. Shocked at an unknown hand, I sat down in a corner, too much knee showing. Boys in tight powder blue pants and pointy shoes lined up to dance with me. One cut in front. “Jeez Sal,” they yelled at him. He pulled me through the dancing couples, pressed his greased pompadour into my left temple; didn’t speak through three slow ones by Johnnie Mathis, led me to the corner club-chair, draped his leather jacket over us, gave me a hands-all-over lesson in Making Out 101. I felt like letting out one of my roller-coaster screams, but couldn’t come up for air. Sal called the next morning, first time I’d heard his voice, soft as his tongue in my ear had been. My mother hung up on him. He never called back. I grew taller than her by Sophomore year.

Day I There is no more crying In the world of the elk; Tomorrow is broadloomed With pictures of Christ. Honey drips from the ceiling, And cautious is the woman Who breads spaghetti For lunch. Take this Snapshot and will it To heaven. I'm done Here; call the campsite, They've got to come home. Day II Treachery waits on Second And Main. The swallow dips A wing in the tar Of Mount Vesuvius. Who will charter the clubhouse now? Don't expect a parade, I'm driving toward Memphis. Check for viruses and a violin On the back of that spider. Exercise for good Measure and eat sushi This Sunday. Skip The procedure And pile the leaves Just so. Day III Toast and claypots put money In your mouth. Don't Shudder, I've got you; You can't fall away. Under this hot August Sky we dig For potatoes, throw The runts into oncoming Traffic. Lift the wind Dear consult, we're up For the lesson. Day IV Never let the cow With the crumpled horn Lure you From data. Prop your window; The bus smells Of papery widows. Day V The moss tickles My scarlet cheek. I'm lit up With headlights. Park on the street.

Our mother never cooked like our grandmother did, her mother, Katie, with ingredients from scratch, took an hour to prepare, a whole morning to get done, filling the apartment with warmth. Our mother reduced food to its driest, flattest state; broiled what should have been babied in a pan on top of the stove, or tenderly minded inside, moistened with juices, and turned. Our mother would throw under the broiler flesh or fish, never looked until edges curled into the same brown, no matter what it started out as, until it toughened up like a wrestler punching our teeth and gums as we tried to chew. No sauce on top of anything, no salt, no spices. We couldn't talk much for all the effort needed for eating the halibut or dry white chicken. We couldn't complain, we couldn't ask for things we weren't getting, like allowance or summer camp, we couldn't plead with her to stop hitting us, we couldn't ask her to stop screaming; all we could do was chew and chew, get through supper time.

halfway to crease of thighs, triple degrees inside subway cars, damp penetrating small of back; driplets downtrack legs stuck to man in front and guy in back like cheese sandwich pressed on grill. Train pounds into stoppings, starts pull out pounding; Front guy - falling - wedges knees, hint of hand on backside; squirmpush, get inch; hand slips past borders, Brooklyn slipping by windows. Guy works hand up dress, organ pressed to legs - I am silent red like cut tomato on shelf; seed of scream opens sound, I say, "you creep keep your hands off me." "Lady, he says, I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole." "Well sir, I happen to know you sure don't have any ten-foot pole."

I grab the microphone, shaking the dust out of my throat from train platforms hanging above Jackson Heights streets, freeing Yemenite songs taught by my mother and her mother before. Behind our counter, my daughter scoops onto plates mounds of hummus, eggplant, falafel. I clap my hands - her hips respond like dogs leaping. She steps out undulating between tables tentative at first moves a filmy scarf off her waist baring skin from breastbone past navel. My notes drive the flesh rolling before me her scarf leaving a wake. I choose a courting tune - her torso responds in lazy loops; the shimmy spreads my notes climb our heads are thrown back one sleek, one curly; her nipples push against fabric point toward the ceiling; my notes bang against borders teeth bared mother to daughter woman by woman, we bow both heads anointed in dollar bills thrown by men paused over food, wallets bulged by photos.