The Resort on Kah-Nee-Ta Indian Reservation
by Yvonne Higgins Leach
The other tourists occupy lawn chairs
outside their cottage doors, and squint, like us,
toward the balding hills.
All day you and I brown like meat
under the broiler-sun, afloat
on our blow-up rafts in the mineral water.
Late afternoon we drive away from the valley floor,
from the pools and teepees to the hills where brush
clumps like hair on the flesh-toned earth,
and two horses feed miles from a fence.
In Warm Springs, we buy fry-bread and jam
in the reservation store. They are the ones
who refuse to work the resort,
and have the lesser house for it.
Driving back, we eat the warm bread
and even though the 100-degree air blusters
around us, we feel cool in our wet suits.
An Indian woman speeds by in her red Camaro,
her uniform sleeve flapping in the wind.
You paint Madras, Oregon very well with words. Great piece!