The Slave Who Discovered New Mexico

Most archives will claim he came from
Morocco, but that was not a name yet
he was not from anywhere. He was sold

and his skin was
said to shimmer
as brushed leather was
pronounced arabized
black, was brown

to Spanish royalty with eyes too big
for the ocean, Estevanico followed
because years earlier he discovered
chains, then Catholicism, discovered
boat hulls the size of villages, dis-
covered the hesitant sleep of the sea-
sick, discovered the good master who
pronounced him as his right hand,
whose name was not really Little
Stephen, the discoverer of the new
Mexico, resting behind museum glass

[The expedition boasted hundreds of men meant to
colonize and plunder Florida’s gulf coast; they did
not bring a single woman because Florida has no gold
and the men would need something to plunder.]

Florida had no gold or grazelands and so Dorantes’
Stephen followed along the coastline in early fall
and discovered the gulf hurricane which swept him
into bondage with his good master by a nameless
tribe living on Texas’ Barrier Islands where he dis-
covered white genocide in Texas’ standardized
history curriculum. Dorantes’ Stephen was one of
four men who escaped along with good Dorantes
who followed his Stephen into the west. Freely,

everyone has survived
some things that are not
meant to happen, to anyone

Black Stephen discovered the famous sky city Acoma
but was not the one who tarred its name under voices
with sails full of letters. Trusted now to walk upright,
to scale the mesas, to report back the pueblitos’ fear,
Black Stephen knew Acoma was not a name yet; Black
Stephen discovered nowhere but the magic of ruins

how they begin
to resemble the land
robbed in creation

as Mustafa Zemmouri gained the trust of his fellow survivors
who gained the trust of the natives who crowned them all
as medicine men; he led thousands as if on a pilgrimage, their
guide and their wake, from village to village, peaceful
explorers trading sandstone for treasure. Across the desert,

[Mustafa Zemmouri, like Morocco, is description and not
name: ‘Chosen Moor’ creoled beyond recognition. With
guns long lost the three Spaniards followed behind his
spear for the tribes they met pronounced his skin death.]

Mustafa Zemmouri hunted for rumor. Painted in white
chalk and feathers he commanded disciples to wrap
sinew around sticks to carry back to the Spaniards,
retracing his steps with a cross whose size corresponded
to the weight of the fortune ahead. At Pueblo Cibola,
his runner delivered a severed gourd; Mustafa was dead

[Cibola was a description and not a name, a forgotten
Spanish word for the buffalo. Unlike the slave who
discovered a new Mexico, this true name has not been
lost: Hawikuh was the first pueblo conquered by the
Spanish and their first failure of public relations saw
adobes razed and forgotten in favor of a church.
We’re asked sometimes if love is possible under
conditions of slavery: my mother is from somewhere
and my father tarred over her name and her
history, his voice full of letters and still she loves
him enough. When she dies the clouds will know it.]

Some say that Estevanico faked his death to
escape love under the conditions of slavery,
that his Puebloan shadows loved enough to
risk retribution and hid him atop the mesas,
that his sons would become the first maroons
with their skin that was brown and was red,
that his life is legend, a great black ogre
scouting for Death with yellow, arabized eyes,
that his true name is Chakwaina — but
Estevanico was a medicine man whose skin
shimmered as brushed leather and bore the
cross before his body was traded for a gourd

like clouds that follow
storms, swollen
but refusing to drop.
heavy and dark and leaving,

we’ll need more roots, soon
as the sky dries.