My ancestors were not diligent
and so they lived beside the fort
that’s neither on the maps of Heaven,
Nor of Hell.
In these lands, there is no difference
between a star and thrown car keys.
Chicken nuggets hatch from the eggs of eagles.
I grow dirty while bathing in bottled water.
My bed comforter is a wet parking lot,
I wrap myself up in.
If I eat in the morning, there’s nothing left in the evening
My dish of grass and cigarette butts topped with expired coupons.
Stir all I like; I never swallow it down.
All the while, my rabbit’s foot runs about
from Las Cruces to West Memphis
searching for flawless luck.
The more one cries, the more one prospers . . .
O’ ancestral demon, may my lamentation become verbal sorcery.
Sy Hoahwah, “Hinterlands” from New Poets of Native Nations. Copyright © 2018 by Sy Hoahwah. Reprinted by permission of Sy Hoahwah.
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