Living La Vida Poca

for Jenny Wrong Way Goat Philips

In the bare mountains of New Mexico,
you trained to be a poet,

that, of course, was silly of you (I thought).
Inspired by your ancestors, you went ahead.

You battled shrubs of granite,
you leveled hogans of wind.

The Navajo girl who raped you
went unpunished for so long,

and when you did find water,
you turned it into poetry.

In this filthy, foreign city of no pity,
I finally admit my defeat at your hands.