You survive the end of the world in Kayenta, AZ with your mother by Kinsale Drake

"A song about women with straight backs and eyelashes strung pretty with rain."

You survive the end of the world in Kayenta, AZ with your mother
by Kinsale Drake

in the Blue Coffee Pot. The waitress sets two tall plastic Coke cups
of water before you both. Today, everyone must be especially
generous to you.

All around: nalis with their tight tsiiyééls and jewels and long velvet skirts
that brush the floor. Your mother says that the turquoise

tear drops are a shield. Never take them off. The women smile
at their grandchildren. They don’t sit with any husbands. You’ve become

attuned again to their little song. Your mother says to you that a plate
of mutton will cure any ailment. You both eat with your hands. You could

have cried. Later, it’s back up to Monument Valley
where the rocks look like women, hushed together. KTNN buzzes:

I wanted to be your everything. The only station for miles. Rock formations
give nothing away. Not everything, you think. Your mother

tells you to use the grease left on your palms to heal your lips. You
smear your fingers across an eye instead. The other. The monuments flicker

and you hum a song about women with straight backs
and eyelashes strung pretty with rain, a song you heard most

while your grandmother still lived
and the roosters rampaged in her yard as she bent

over the fire with cardboard and a poker
and your mother smiled and swayed you on her hip,

looking off, off toward the mountain,
feeding you mutton with her hands.

★ First published in ONLY POEMS ★