COWBOYS & INDIANS

Knew this old Navaho,
though maybe,
now that I think about it,
coulda been a Sioux,
maybe Apache, no, no, Pawnee,
hell Comanche, Mohawk--
he was some fucking Indian
--with a face, damn,
sun scorched & baked,
cracked like good leather
who, when I asked why
every one of his goddamn songs
were all about the rain?

He looked at me
for a good while
trying to figure out
if I was a Presbyterian,
or Baptist, a Jew,
maybe Italian or Irish
or some fucking white man
--because we ain't got no rain,
he finally said. How
are your people doin with love?

Gimme another,
I said.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016