Futures

Futures


oh children think about
the good times --Lucille Clifton


We lived in the HUD house
for fifty bucks a month.
Those were the good times.
ANNIE GREEN SPRINGS WINE
was a dollar a bottle.
My uncles always came over
to eat stew and fry bread
to get drunk in the sweatlodge
to spit and piss in the fire.

No one never had no job
but we could always eat
commodity cheese and beef
and Mom sold her quilts
for fifty bucks each to whites
driving in from Spokane
to buy illegal fireworks.

The was the summer I found
a bag full of real silver dollars
and gave all my uncles all
my brothers and sisters each one
and no one spent any.....not one.


Sherman Alexie.......from The Business of Fancydancing