young navajo girl

young navajo girl.

In the land’s large palm, its distance the rough edges, make her look so much smaller. Mesa table tops, stacked like hands fingers intertwined, wrinkled and callused. Hands the girl has held before. Hands the girl has never seen before. Hands growing yucca plants and yellow rocks, from their fingernails.

The reservation border, a string pulled, taut, makes her chest hurt. A line she’s forced to walk, palms out, knees locked.

A young girl with skin the shade of the land she calls home. Dark hair the length of her ancestors’ well wishes, tied up with yarn behind her ears.

Calluses knot her heels. At her feet, sunlight licks her toes. Dirt mats her shins, scraped and wet with sweat, Her grandmother’s old coat rests on her shoulders, like hardened clay on her arms, bits of rock and ripped corn stalks peek between the girl’s matted silhouette.

Hands guide them, at’eed, aszdáán, masání, across the string, gripping tight, rubbing coaxing shapes into their tired wrists. Listen closely, to the wind and you can hear them. Exhaling, out and in Inhaling, in and out, right before they jump.

Her eyes are soft, if she smiled, they’d crinkle at the edges. If she frowned, they’d flatten and glaze over.

Crinkling when roadside vendors sell her steamed corn. Flattening when drunk fathers and uncles break their promises.

A young girl, whose name latches uncomfortably on white tongues. They tell her, “Whisper––don’t let your voice echo.” because with her comes the voices and names of young girls back home.

young girls–– at’eed

old girls–– aszdáán

older women–– masání

Each with words in their throat, twisting and bursting like blueberries, strung like the branches of juniper trees grounded between teeth in the crisp morning air cold and damp on their tongues.

Hands guide them, at’eed, aszdáán, masání, across the string, gripping tight, rubbing coaxing shapes into their tired wrists. Listen closely, to the wind and you can hear them. Exhaling, out and in Inhaling, in and out, right before they jump.

DANIELLE EMERSON B’22.5 misses the smell of juniper trees and wet southwest dirt.