Originally posted 7/24/2007.

There’s the one
about how 
once upon a time 

I saw a man at Acoma
replacing a pine post
and doing note-perfect
Monty Python routines
with a couple of his friends.

There’s the one that begins at a party 
where a friend of mine insisted
that once upon a time

Tonto
was in love with the Lone Ranger,
but every time he tried
to make a move
the big guy said something like
“hiyo, Silver,”
and eventually Tonto realized
he could do so much better
than a goody two shoes
into cosplay.

There’s the one about
a man who walks the high steel
for a paycheck
and doesn’t drink it away.

Did you hear the one about
the old guy who scared me
by looking like my father,
who tried to pay me four bucks
to drive him from Alamogordo 
to Mescalero
and who smiled and shook my hand
when I said I could not take
his money?

Let’s hear the one
about Robin Chatterbox
and how she became a doctor.
The one about the casino
that paid for a new school.
The one about how the TV show
pulled a shameful episode.
The one about the meth lab
prayed (and then chased) off the rez
by the old folks.

Note the overt absence of 
Coyote, Crow, and the Great Spirit.
Note that nowhere here does the moon
speak to the hunter
and that no one’s bones 
call out to the beloved 
left behind.

Some things are best kept 
in the family

but, for you,
in the spirit of
“multiculturalism,”
here’s one more:
once upon a time

someone left this fire for dead.

See the ashes starting to stir? 
Goddamn —

is that
some kind of bird?