Nia Francisco
- riding by a bar called "nn"
where broken wine bottles trickle
down sun-baked face of earth
where barb-wire-type scar crawls
over a navajo swollen nose
trickling tears down swollen lips
over chapped cheeks at home alone
as casted silver buttons/visions
fade into stoned grave flower images
where a mirage of yei bii che
quivers in brown red eyes of mine
sadness, emptiness in a voice
as a beggar behind a woven blanket
in a photograph
of navajo times
the weakness of a spring sprout
shows in drunken men and women
only to have eyes glisten
with greed for turquoise/silver
eyes belonging to gallup independent
readers riding by a bar called "navajo inn."
From The South Corner of Time edited by Larry Evers, University of Arizona Press.
© 1981 Nia Francisco
