CRISOSTO APACHE
★ ★ ★ ★
POETRY
Star Gazer
overnight, inside
the lithe of white linings
bends a beautiful
explosion,
that leave
bruises
and swells,
of spotted red
amid
the violent
spread, emitting
a bountiful
bouquet
of sensual decay
My Religion
may offend,
because I partake of his body,
— I say his because I may not be male,
though I desperately want to be,
nailing the body harder, and as often as I can,
harder than history can recall,
over, over, and over,
on wooden floors with wooden stakes,
sometimes, there is blood that spills,
the same type of blood most will kill for,
the same type of blood that has killed,
but mostly the same type of blood that saves
but never keeps.
Crisosto Apache is a Mescalero / Chiricahua Apache and Diné (Navajo), Salt Clan born for Towering House Clan, from New Mexico, USA. He is an alumnus from IAIA (AFA 1992 / MFA 2015) and Metropolitan State University of Denver (BA, 2013) for English Writing and Creative Writing. He teaches at several colleges in the Denver Metro in Colorado. He currently lives Lakewood, Colorado with his spouse of 17 years. His public work also includes Native LGBTQI / ‘two spirit’ advocacy. Some of Crisosto’s work is published in Black Renaissance Noiré, Yellow Medicine Review (2013/2015), Denver Quarterly (Pushcart Prize Nominee 2014), Toe Good Poetry, Hawaii Review, Cream City Review Plume Anthology, Common Place, Tending the Fire, by Christopher Felver, and American Indian Culture & Research Journal (ACRJ). Crisosto also appeared on MTV’s Free Your Mind (1993) ad campaign for poetry. Crisosto has book reviews for the Native American Anthology Visit Tee-Pee Town (Coffee House Press 1999), published in the Poetry Project publication, Issue 175, June 1999. crisostoapache.com/about/
