Class Photo

poem

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I see you, Indian girls and boys,
my classmates, my peers,
my cousins, friends, and mirrors.
We're only in our fifties now

but almost half of us are dead.
Some of us never made it out
of our twenties. That's what
happens to reservation kids. If

we make it past thirty then odds
are good that we'll make it
past sixty. I don't talk to you
as much as I should but I write

poems for you all the time.
Our parents and grandparents
also went to school together
and are buried in the same

cemeteries. We are a tribe.
We know the same songs
and stories. We know the same
rivers and streams. We know

the same stones and trees.
We know the same game trails
and the same small town streets.
Dear classmates,  we are more

than just the Indians who
shared a childhood. We are
tragedy, velocity, and gravity.
We are, we are, we are geography.