Barely-morning pink curtains
drape an open window. Roaches scatter,
the letter t vibrating in cottonwoods.
His hair horsetail and snakeweed.
I siphon doubt from his throat
for the buffalograss.
Seep willow antler press against
the memory of the first man I saw naked.
His tongue a mosquito whispering
its name a hymn on mesquite,
my cheek. The things we see the other do
collapse words into yucca bone.
The Navajo word for eye
hardens into the word for war.
Copyright © 2019 by Jake Skeets. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 12, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.