Sherman Alexie
Blood Boys
Since my normal body temperature is 101.4, half a degree hotter than most folks, one
could argue that I’m always running a low-grade fever.
But, in practical terms, it just means that mosquitoes, alert to my heat, swarm me and
only me in a crowd of people. If you want to have a bug-free experience, go camping or
to an outdoor summer concert with me.
My high body temperature also means that I sweat a lot.
Over the years, I’ve tried various wicking T-shirts, but have found that I defeat each of
them with my voluminous perspiration. So, when I’m traveling, I discard damp
undershirts in my hotel rooms and buy a new six-pack at the nearest Target or WalMart.
I imagine that the housekeepers bring the shirts home and launder them. I imagine there
are dozens of Mexican and Russian immigrant men wearing my second-hand T-shirts.
I wonder if they also look in the mirror and think the white T-shirts looks good against
their dark skin.
And maybe one of those men sweats like me. He’s sitting on the porch during a crazy
heat wave. Mosquitoes are going all Vlad-the-Impaler on him. He sees one on his arm,
but waits until the thing is obese with blood. Then he, quick-handed, smashes it. There is
blood and mayhem on his skin. He brings his arm to his mouth and eats the blood and
dead mosquito.
He thinks it all tastes lonesome.
Odd Bird
Among the starlings,
A crow pretends
To be a starling.
Is this startling?
No, that crow must
Love a starling
So much that it has left
Its avian tribe bereft.
O, crow,
Go play and pray
With your ad-hoc flock,
And the rest of us,
Daring and darling,
Will do the same
With all of our starlings.
Bio
Sherman Alexie is the author of twenty-two books, including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, winner of the 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, War Dances, winner of the 2010 PEN Faulkner Award, and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, a PEN Hemingway Special Citation winner. He is also the winner of the 2001 PEN Malamud Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story. Smoke Signals, the film he wrote and co-produced, won the Audience Award and Filmmakers' Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. He lives with his family in Seattle, Washington. Visit his website.