undergroundology (teacher 2)

he tells me he's becoming the mountains (2008 and 2025)

Teacher
in his studded leather jacket
and cowboy boots
sucking on a cigarette.
The boy to my left says,
	there’s a difference
	between spirits and spooks.
	I’m learning to only listen
	to the ones that have 
	my best interest in mind.
Teacher throws the butt
into the fire heating the stones,
says nothing.

Teacher
hands me eagle feathers 
in the dark, his hands
grasp for mine.

.

Teacher
twenty years later:
We text daily
from opposite coasts.
We talk idly of ravens
his horses and dogs and truck
his glory days as a rodeo star
growing up on the rez
the tall light-beings who
come to him in dreams.
I encourage him to buy a donkey.

He tells me I am a wild cowgirl
who cannot be tamed.
Don’t remind me, I say.
He asks after my daughter
and I send pictures of her
picking squash in the garden.

He tells me he’s 
quit the fire water
He tells me he's 
becoming the Mountains.