My Letter to the Giant Indian Working at the Convenience Store in Shiprock, New Mexico

My Letter to the Giant Indian Working at the Convenience Store in Shiprock, New Mexico (Alan Birkelbach, former Texas Poet Laureate)

Mr. Giant Indian,
Sure, you think you’re working from a position of strength,
but you are stuck behind a counter loaded with impulse items--
energy drinks and old payday bars and highway maps.
Sure, you’re huge, and you block out the sun,
and sure, everyone in line ahead of me and behind me 
might be as red-skinned as you are, 
and you are giving me a
‘you gotta feel uncomfortable here white-boy’ look—
but here’s the bottom line:  I’m getting in my car and I’m driving away.
I can drive away.  And you cannot.  
This is where you are.  And I’m supposed to be way over there.
You might be Navajo.  Or Jemez.  Maybe even Apache.  
We both know I’m not.  Oh well.  
I’m not gonna suffer any type of generational guilt, 
and you can smirk at me  over the packages of potato chips all you want--   
but just look at those salty snacks.  Do they look like fry bread?
Do they look like native food?
They are binding you as well as any iron shackles.
And those cash registers.  Bet your people didn’t make those.
They are keeping you in line as well as any whip.
I have my own pork rinds.  And my own cash registers.  Thank you.
Maybe not here.  Maybe not today.  I am only passing through.
You are smirking at me because I am a stranger and you own this land.
But that big rock out there predates you and me.
And it doesn’t care about us.  
It feels the earth pushing up and gravity pulling down.
and sooner or later it will fall too, 
captive to something bigger than itself.
Something bigger--like eons.  Something bigger-- like Fate.