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That time I stole a blue Impala in Flagstaff
the first year they made those automatic windows, you know?
I was sixteen and I was cruising down the highway
Hot on the trail to Albuquerque
I was hungry
and I was howling, man.
It was like stealing the best horse in the herd.
Copyright © 2014 by Laura Tohe. This poem originally appeard in Cream City Review. Used with permission of the author.
Female Rain
Dancing from the south
cloudy cool and gray
pregnant with rainchild
At dawn she gives birth to a gentle mist
flowers bow with wet sustenance
luminescence all around
The day you arrived on your Turquoise Horse I was already riding my Rainbow Horse, as we were promised beautiful horses to carry us into this world. On this Rain-blessed earth you will pause at Ch’ooshgai to sing:
Dził bich’ì’ yishááł . . . I am approaching the mountain
Dził bikáá’ haashá . . . I am ascending the mountain
Dził bikáá’naashá . . . I am walking on the mountain
Dził bąądóó adaashááh . . . I am descending the mountain
Dził bits’ąąjį́ dah diishááh . . . I am leaving the mountain
Moths circle the kerosene lamp
on the floor that
sheds a dim light on our night work.
My cousin and I keep carding the wooly clumps.
Twigs and dirt that clung to the sheep
from their wanderings among sagebrush and thistle
drop into our laps.
We card and card to transform them
into layers of soft clouds for Nalí’s spindle.
Iich’ąhii says Nalí, almost in a whisper,
like she was afraid to stir the name,
like the name might release something formed from night.