Cliffs, skirted
by smoke-laced air
wrung from blinds, eclipse
faint sighs dripping
down a fence-line’s aura.
Eggs in her throat,
female rain returns
in photographs
wind-hung at eye level,
when her husband
taps the light locked
doorknob with his scuffed boot.
Sherwin Bitsui (Diné) is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. He is Diné of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He is the author of Shapeshift, Flood Song and Dissolve. His honors include a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and a Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship. He is also the recipient of a 2010 PEN Open Book Award, an American Book Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. He is on faculty at Northern Arizona University.
