Promised Land Promised
Land hitches Highway 64 every day between Farmington & Shiprock.
Just out of his prison shoes after his fourth DWI, some
nights he sleeps at Bob’s Car Wash in one of the
stalls where it’s almost a room with a swamp
cooler. The
other “weavers,” that’s what he calls drunks, steal the groceries that he’s taking home
for his daughter. The weavers steal his carton
of eggs & bread & cheese. He sees his
ex from time to time, selling herself for a can of
hairspray &
a bottle––she’s never seen their daughter since day one. His mother’s a drunken wore. His
father, a drunk, got run over in Teec Nos Pos
when he was sixteen. Promised Land knows what it comes down to. The dream’s not
finished. That’s
his place back there with the pink trailers, rabbits, upside-down piano, City Market & Little
Caesars––just beyond the bridge over the San Juan River, the muddy San Juan. Promised Land’ll tell you all about that rust silver
bridge. How
he dropped from the girders onto trucks Rolling
by. How he leapt into the river those Long
summers past. Shiprock, Navajoland 20
July 1996 [Published in The Dance Of Yellow Lightning Over The
Ridge: Poems 1993-1997. © 1998 by Jim Cohn.]
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