I went through a major breakup before I finished my debut book of poems. I was thinking of Joy Harjo’s line “the heart is a fist” from “Break My Heart” and the harshness of the landscape of the desert. Monarch butterflies halved by zooming cars. Unforgiving summers, beautiful as they are. How fast people drive on those lonely roads, during the day and well into the night. How easy it is (like the Eagles song!) for your mind to drift to your many heartbreaks. That dulled feeling—kind of funny, kind of tragic. You have to laugh, and you have to cry, just like the rest of the world.•
After Joy Harjo
Albuquerque phone booth:
Next door a boy I loved
who loved my cousin
It’s only funny
if you’re not an NDN
The desert
teaches us
not to give all
of ourselves away
Wish I’d remembered
burning piñon
reserves
& clay deposits
Before I dreamed
cool rush of river
that dries in August
& frogs
that disappear
for eight months
or more
at a time
I have loved you,
he had said,
since before I have known you:
letters gutted
monarch wings
on the highway
as Albuquerque
skated past
& the phone booths whipped by
small blue spines
& I
Swept up
from the line
Lifted high by a gale,
Brought too far
from a shoulder of water
This poem appears in Issue 29 of Alta Journal.
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Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a winner of the 2023 National Poetry Series for her debut poetry collection, The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket. She was named by Time as an artist who is representing her decade by “changing how we see the world,” and she is the founder of the NDN Girls Book Club.
