“How did he choke you? How did he break your wrist? Did you try calling anyone? When did he start getting violent? Why don’t you move?”

“Within this cage, the killing of her spirit was daily from being forced to speak a language that was not her own and to learn of a culture she was not born into.”

“Grandfather would step outside and look up at the pure blue sky, the wrinkles on his face deepening, mimicking the dry cracked earth as he searched for the clouds.”

“A low rumble sounds gradually then all at once the train rounds the corner toward the road. Wind rushes across my face as it tears past. In its wake, the penny spins from the rail, flattened smooth.”

“In languages, we encapsulate the individual and communal mental and spiritual contemplative efforts of a people—each unique.”

“It wasn’t just the coma. I couldn’t feel her spirit in the room with us. I knew she was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.”

“With words about savages, standing too long in the sun to know what’s good for them. My mother stands strong. I raise myself higher, in proud nickel likeness.”

“Old dogs of Taos, dream off wounds – together they sleep in shade under clouds, dozing off sunshine in the long shadow of the old earth house.”

“Beautiful skies, red orange ascending into blue, over mirror like waters . . .”