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1. In what way does the page 1 opening line of "Postcolonial Love Poem," ("I've been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite") center the Mojave worldview?

The opening line of "Postcolonial Love Poem" mentions moonstone without an explanation of what this is and then connects it to curing snakebite. The non-Mojave reader must make inferences--that this might be traditional Mojave teaching--but without prior research cannot immediately enter into the world of the poem in the same way that a Mojave reader might be able to.

2. What relationship exists between the title "Postcolonial Love Poem" and the line, "I learned Drink in a country of drought" (1)?

The poem's title guides the reader to understand the poem as a meditation on the complexities of love for those who have experienced colonization. Although in a literal sense, a Mojave native would grow up in the desert, there is another layer of meaning to the line, "I learned Drink in a country of drought" (1). The "country" is not just the Mojave nation's land, but also the United States, and the speaker's love and desire--her "thirst"--was also formed in the context of a lack of life-sustaining resources brought about by colonialism.

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