Look Carefully

They stare, equally wide-eyed,
standing small in the doorways
of their ruined Reservation homes,
far from the buffalo, the trout

stream and berry patch legends.

I see simple movie images: wild
painted savages on spotted ponies,
whopping Hollywood war, swooping
down from the hills to surround

our Ford station wagon, white
in the heat of the bloody red
sun, making slow progress west.
"Look carefully," my father says,

"This is all the sad remains

of a once Great Nation." Garbage
piled in empty fields, skeletons
of cars and wasted whiskey bottles.
Fogging the glass with my breath,

I am a tourist to Them, a thief
who steals glances from car windows
and wonders what it must be like
to be an Indian Child, far from

Hollywood on their Reservation home.