Summary

“When My Brother Was an Aztec,” the titular first poem of the collection, introduces the main characters of the collection: the sister, who is also the speaker of the poem, the brother, whose struggle with addiction to meth is described through the extended metaphor of being “an Aztec," and the parents who are being destroyed emotionally in their attempts to help their son. The poem uses “the Aztec” as an archetype superimposed over the speaker’s brother to represent a brutality for which the speaker shows little sympathy. She opens by saying that the speaker’s brother has sacrificed their parents, alluding to the Aztec practice of human sacrifice.

“Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation,” the first poem of Section I of the collection, concerns the subject of angels. The speaker says angels do not exist on...