More Of My Work

Some Short Story Titles

“Buffalo Wallow Woman”
“The Devil and Sister Lena”
“The Warriors”
“Becenti”
“Apparitions”
“Crane’s Track”
“Mythomania”
“Going Home”
“The Laws”
“The Sun Is Not Merciful”
“The Web”
“Che”
“Lizette’s Passion”

Novel Titles

“Ghost Singer"
"Vows"
"A Remembrance of the Earth—Maya Suje Mi..."

Other Titles

“The Sacred (coauthor)"
"The Sun Is Not Merciful"
"Talking Indian"
"The Pawnee"
"The Spirit of Native America"

My Work

Hinúñe

Sister (Hinúñe),
we ride
phantom horses,
streaks of whirling air,
untethered, patterns
chanted long ago
to here.

Hinúñe,
phantoms are real.
Some are motherless
or fatherless places
we often trot through,
where our hearts
thump erratically
over what is
or is not there.
All tracks are gone.
Just etchings
wriggle on our palms.
Everything points here.

Hinúñe,
on phantom horses
we escape
stinging nettles
and razor snares,
time and time again.
Each getaway
is a close call,
yet we hang on
to the fiery spirit
at our core,
do not plunge
or disappear.
We arrive here.

Hinúñe,
our chargers stop,
the world ends, too.
In these breaks
we observe ourselves
paint cave images
of fearlessness
with infinite care
on our faces and limbs,
crepey and translucent
at the same time,
the paint bleeds,
bare images freeze,
slide off fingertips.
All the pieces
snap tightly together.
We breathe deeply here.

Hinúñe,
phantom horses
look sideways,

watch us
mouth the word
“Sister,” silently.
Let it not be spoiled.
Only streaks of air
hear.

Hinúñe,
our steeds
lift us,
just as we are,
or maybe they
transport us
as goddesses,
or bags of dust,
or something else
profane,
sinew of what is
or what if,
to places
never dreamed,
and they fling
us far from
where we set out
to land stunned
on new ground,
in unexpected grace,
childlike, innocent,
(we are neither)
surprised, joyful
the circumstances
bring us safely here.

Hinúñe
this name
—a flowering thing
tends wounds,
and heeds call.
Chanted in fervor
long ago, it
delivers us here.