The 35th Annual Yakima Nation All-Indian Basketball Tournament

The 35th Annual Yakima Nation All-Indian Basketball Tournament


1.
I can't believe it--
the 20th century arrived

moments before the clock started
on the all-Indian basketball game

when a braided man sang
THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER

accompanied by a drum
and a strange sun

breaking through windows.
A crazy woman

from Hollywood
or Montana

photographs Skins
announced over the PA system

she's a scout
for a major motion picture studio

casting extras for the remake
of LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

She surrounded us
in the visitor's locker room

asked Piapot
What kind of cars do Indians drive?

He told her to walk outside
and look in the parking lot.

Sweetheart, history
doesn't always look like horses.

2.
Indians from everywhere
drinking beer

in a nameless bar
when Junior suggests

we should buy a case to go
and drive to Yakima

and we all agree
until someone reminds us

we're already in Yakima.
It happens that way:

our body forgets
the rhythm of survival.

3.
Here, my father
told us the story

of a white cop
who stopped him

stole his shoes
and gave him five minutes

to run the last mile
across the reservation border.

God bless you, America
my father is still running.

4.
3a.m. and Seymour
screws an Indian girl

in the motel bathroom
while I pretend to sleep

some tribe or another
powwows by the ice machine

and the graveyard shift manager
threatens to call the police

everybody singing
I love you, I love you.

5.
Breakfast
in the House of Pancakes

and the white waitress
ignores my empty

coffee cup.
I leave her

a dollar bill
folded into a question mark.


Sherman Alexie...........from Old Shirts & New Skins