Edgar Garcia

from Skins of Columbus

To go among the islands to say

marvelous things about them to find

mastic and aloe and roots to bind

from which the Indians make bread

To see fresh water we went everywhere

after a thing called desire        

He came back to say the island

larger than Portugal with twice

the people had things all over

not locked up he came back

on a new bike–a BMX he said

in            → like in LA

     or the IE ←

inland Empire

he hesitated at first to take it but

the way he grew up

you don’t hesitate

with stuff left unlocked

Her bedside cabinet as usual

peopled with icons and saints

perched next to each other

sitting on top of one another

stuck with tape to the wall too

beneath other ones stuck to

 

Stuck to some of their bodies

are the more familiar faces of her kin:

Sister, children, ancient friends

Skins of Columbus, as its title suggests, is a heterogenous text that splits itself into different modes or skins: journal entries, diary entries “strictly speaking,” collages, photos, short discursive essays, a capacious “Notes” section, and an “Oneirograpy” in place of a bibliography. The complexity of its formats evolves from the dream-based methodology Garcia used for the book’s composition:

 

That night, and every night for the next three months during which he [Columbus] traveled the coasts, tricking history into his tasks, you read the journal before bed closely to have your sleeping mind think intently on its images, plots, symbols, motives, and feelings. You wished to see what, when left to its matrix of associations, your mind made of the colonial story. Notes throughout the night recorded your dreams. In the mornings, you made new notations to chart closer contacts between you two, dreamer and traveler. You composed the text in the evenings, putting your dreams and the journal together into a new story of creation.