Luci tapahonso poems better to avoid her

We sit outside on the deck
and below, tiny flickers of light appear here and there.
They are silent and quick.
The night is thick and the air is alive with buzzing and humming insects.
"They're lightning bugs," Lori says.

"Fireflies."

I wonder how I will get through another day.

"I think they are connected with magic," she says,
peering into the darkness.

Luci tapahonso poems better to avoid her

Luci tapahonso poems better to avoid her

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Luci tapahonso poems better to avoid her eyes

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"Maybe people around here tell stories
about small bits of magic that appear on summer nights."
"Yes," I say. "it must be."

I walk inside the house and phone my mother.
From far away, she says, "I never heard of such a thing.
There's nothing like that in Navajo stories."
She is speaking from hundreds of miles away
where the night is dark and the sky, a huge, empty blackness.
The long shadows of the mesas stretch across the flat land.
"Someone is having a sing near here," she says.

"We can hear
the drums all night long. Your father and I are all alone here."
Her voice is the language