ARIZONA ABECEDARIAN 

And so, we take off in the morning  

because it takes five hours to get to Phoenix, passing the  

cemetery turn-off, each time leaving Chinle where we buried shímasaní when she  

died; watching from atop as the  

elevation levels itself through Burnside.  

Feeling hungry because I didn't eat breakfast, we stop and  

get something to eat at the Carl's Jr. (aka Hardee's) in   

Holbrook. The roads on this side of Route 66 boast sideline  

Indian arts and crafts and trading posts on billboards, and I am  

just a worn-out caricature to all of these attractions that try to  

keep a town alive. I ask my uncle what it was  

like when he took a bus all the way to Virginia so  

many years ago. He tells me that there's   

nothing in the middle of the country, passing through  

Oklahoma City slumber, the starkness of Arkansas.  

Perhaps I'll keep on looking at these places from above and never  

question where I haven't been. We pull off to the side—a car emerges  

rearview chased by police. Traffic is held hostage in a  

standstill as roadside attractions are handcuffed—a helicopter whirls overhead.  

Traffic is closed off—escaping Fort McDowell just in time, my  

uncle drives me around Phoenix. Tempe at night—urban ndn  

vendors and Gila River/Tohono O'odham band members gathered at the holiday market.   

Wake at dawn arriving at Sky Harbor— single-file through TSA, the  

x-rays reveal me all clear. Staring out the airplane window, reliving everything that happened  

yesterday, I doze off in and out among the snow-capped and cumulus,  

zooming eastbound and aerial towards my sunrise home.