Sherwin Bitsui
I stretch dusk
over my face
puncture eyeholes
with coyote teeth,
see wolves
daubed with
wrens’ blood
howling southward;
blue birds nesting
in their ears.
This season’s
splinters, sleepless
in tree rings—ringing,
as drought pecks
into halves
each trickle of tó
Sherwin Bitsui (Diné) is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. He is Diné of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He is the author of Shapeshift, Flood Song, and Dissolve. His honors include a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and a Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship. He is also the recipient of a 2010 PEN Open Book Award, an American Book Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. He is on faculty at Northern Arizona University.