Rosebud, South Dakota

Diving south from White River
I tried to outsmart the coming storm.
Lightning cracks acrost
the back of the Black Hills.
Once sacred, now white.
Settled by
purveyors of trinkets and trash.
Three men sit outside a liquor store
at the edge of town
sipping Forties.
Forgotten warriors.
Booze is illegal on the Rez
but the border towns oblige.
Open early, close late.
Low clouds blow fast.
Driving through seams of ancient sandstone
on this barren blacktop ribbon.
Sandhills. Badllands.
Doublewides sit square
and squat against the relentless wind.
Two pit bulls tied to a tree.
A small trike turned over in a driveway.
Rusted cars in a yard.
A small bird hits the windshield.
One claw wraps the radio antenna
and the small body is impaled,
wings spread,
stuck with me
flying across this empty place.
Hills rise and fall like waves.
A herd of buffalo crests the horizon
running with their tongues cut out.
A memory
of genocide by starvation.
A flock of crows fly north
each with a bloomed rose in its beak.
They drop them as they fly.
Petals fall like dead dreams.
They call this place Rosebud.