The Wreck, 1985

poem

Photo by Ethan Hasenfratz on Unsplash

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Driving on empty, telling myself
the joke that nobody can make
a car go farther on an ounce
of gas than rez Indians, I dreamed

of winning the lottery. But not
the big money. Not the millions.
It's dangerous to dream too big.
I just wanted to win a few thousand—

enough to take my parents
and siblings on a crazy-spending
weekend in the city. Get a hotel
room. Eat fancy food. Buy new

clothes. And 56 novels for me
to read. Then my car remembered
it was winter and slid on ice
toward the twenty-foot drop

on the left before running into
the shallow ditch on the right.
The car was okay. I was okay.
It was a minor crash. My car

sat in a reservation ditch so
I knew that some random truck-
driving Indian would eventually 
wander by and pull me back

onto the road. And, hey, maybe
you think that I learned a safety
lesson about distracted driving—
about distracted living. But

I didn't pause. You know what I did
after my cousin showed up 
and got me back onto the road?
I remembered that I had no

gas so I started crooning
a powwow tune while using
the steering wheel as a drum
and my voice as my voice

and drove my emptinesses all
the way home where I shared
a sleeve of saltine crackers
and butter with my sisters,

brothers, and the five stray
dogs who, at separate times
over the years, had all strode
into our unfinished home

and declared us their humans.
We were their lottery win.
So, yeah, here's a little thing
for you to know: When

you're poor, your dogs and you
eat the same food. And if you
sing the higher notes long enough
then your dogs will howl, too.