The Middle Years

poem

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash

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I’m old enough to mourn more and more
old friends who’ve died. I remember
the rez buddy who leaned across 
the powwow picnic table to grab honey

for his fry bread then showed me
the horsefly and wasp trapped inside
the sticky jar. “Man,” he said. “Indians
can't have nothing nice.” We laughed.

He ate his bread unadorned. I worry
that I’ll be the Indian who lives long
enough to bury all the Indians he loves.
So, Lord, here's my prayer, haphazard

and scribbled: Please let me be the Indian
who dies somewhere in the middle.