Good-bye, divisions of people:
those hickory-chopping,
the hump hunters,
skunk people
dung people
people who live under trees
who live in broken houses
and parts of houses.
Their-house-worn-out people
are the meanest of all.
My house-cut-off people, I’m saying good-bye
to that person behind me.
She’s the one
who tried to please her father,
the one an uncle loved for her dark hair.
White coyote behind me
light up your eyes, your white shadows,
your white round mouth
in its cage of black trees, a moon
running from branch to branch.
Moon that lives in the water,
snapping turtle that crawled out
at me.
Good-bye shooting horse above a dead man’s grave.
Let that blessed rain
where fish descended from the sky
evaporate.
in that river who is the moon
living in a broken house,
who is the coyote
dwelling among the blackjack broken off
people, the turtle
who lives in its round white shell,
I can tell you good-bye.
Good-bye to the carved bone beads
I found by the river. They can grow back
their flesh,
their small beating hearts,
air in the bones
and gray wings they fly
away from me.
Good-bye to the Milky Way
who lives in his old worn-out place,
dog white
his trail.
All my people are weeping
when I step out of my old skin
like a locust singing good-bye,
feet still clinging
to the black walnut tree.
They say I’ve burned all my brown sticks
for telling time
and still it passes away.