My Siblings and I Get Nostalgic

Sherman Alexie, Sr., father of Arnold, Kim, Arlene, and Sherman, Jr.

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Bug was missing a thumb; Mouse was missing an eye.
We loved those reservation Indian guys 
	so why can’t we remember their birth names?
They drank themselves to death
	and became salmon constellations
		in the night sky.
Bug was missing a thumb; Mouse was missing an eye.
How’d they lose their parts? Nobody recalls
	though I remember Mouse often dabbed
		his face with a bandanna
			because his missing eye
				still cried.
Bug loved to flip his thumb stump at us instead
	of his middle finger. And we’d laugh.
		Those two are forever enshrined
			in our father’s Drinking Buddy
				Hall of Fame.
Bug was missing a thumb; Mouse was missing an eye.
We loved those reservation Indian guys
	so why can’t we remember their birth names?

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