Deer Dancer

Painting by JD Challenger

Deer Dancer
by Joy Harjo


Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle
of winter except the hardcore. It was the coldest
night of the year, every place shut down, but not us.
Of course we noticed when she came in.
We were Indian ruins. She was the end of beauty.
No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe we
recognized, her family related to deer,
if that's who she was, a people accustomed to hearing
songs in pine trees, and making them hearts.

The woman inside the woman who was to dance naked
in the bar of misfits blew deer magic. Henry jack,
who could not survive a sober day, thought she was
Buffalo Calf Woman come back, passed out, his head
by the toilet. All night he dreamed a dream
he could not say. The next day he borrowed
money, went home, and sent back the money I lent.
Now that's a miracle. Some people see vision in
a burned tortilla, some in the face of a woman.

This is the bar of broken survivors, the club
of the shotgun, knife wound, of poison by culture.
We who were taught not to stare drank our beer. The
players gossiped down their cues. Someone put a quarter
in the jukebox to relive despair. Richard's wife dove
to kill her. We had to keep her still, while Richard
secretly bought the beauty a drink.

How do I say it? In this language there are no words
for how the real world collapses. I could say it
in my own and the sacred mounds would come into
focus, but I couldn't take it in this dingy envelope.
So I look at the stars in this strange city,
frozen to the back of the sky,
the only promises that ever make sense.

My brother-in-law hung out with white people,
went to law school with a perfect record, quit.
Says you can keep your laws, your words. And
practiced law on the street with his hands.
He jimmied to the proverbial dream girl,
the face of the moon, while the players racked
a new game. He bragged to us, he told her magic words
and that when she broke, became human.
But we all heard his voice crack:

What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?

That's what I'd like to know,
what are we all doing in a place like this?


You would know she could hear only what she wanted to;
don't we all? Left the drink of betrayal Richard bought her,
at the bar. What was she on? We all wanted some.
Put a quarter in the juke. We all take risks stepping into
thin air. Our ceremonies didn't predict this.
or we expected more.

I had to tell you this, for the baby inside the girl
sealed up with a lick of hope and swimming
into the praise of nations. This is not a rooming
house, but a dream of winter falls and the deer
who portrayed the relatives of strangers.
The way back is deer breath on icy windows.

The next dance none of us predicted. She borrowed
a chair for the stairway to heaven and stood on a table
of names. And danced in the room of children
without shoes.

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
With four hungry children and a
crop in the field.

And then she took off her clothes.
She shook loose memory, waltzed with the
empty lover we'd all become.

She was the myth slipped down through dreamtime.
The promise of feast we all knew was coming.
The deer who crossed through knots of a curse to find
us. She was no slouch, and neither were we, watching.

The music ended. And so does the story. I wasn't there.
But I imagined her like this, not a stained red dress
with tape on her heels but the deer who entered our dream
in white dawn, breathed mist into pine trees, her fawn a
blessing of meat, the ancestors who never left.

Joy Harjo