“Here I am in the reservation of my mind.”

                                    Adrian C. Louis

 

Screams drown the sound of hand on face;

or is it a fist? It takes a cross country drive

for the bruises to fade. There was snow in

Flagstaff, temperature 106 in Phoenix.

In a place called Needles an old man with

brown skin, more like wood than leather,

stared at me as I fingered the sandstone

figures of wolf, raven, buffalo. There were

questions about pictures on hides and bark,

answers stopped short by a jerk of the arm,

“Don’t talk to these people” hissed in an ear.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Hurry up and go.”

Walking past the old man, “There is a spirit

following you. Do not let them chase it away.”

 

The first hint I was switched at birth.