William Hayward

By the time that I crawled out of the Plymouth
I knew that Laurel was dead

This little white girl from an unbelievably white family
Lay sprawled a few feet away from the edge of the Clay Cliffs
Jagged diamonds of windshield glass in her hair
Caught the last of the sun's rays as it winked out over the ocean

I held my palm to my forehead, watching the blood drip down
into the soil of my people
We were on reservation land still,
about two miles from the town line

This was not a good place for an island girl to turn up dead
And drunk
In the car of her equally drunk Indian boyfriend.

It wouldn't matter that she had been the one driving
Or that she had been the one that had downed a fifth of Jack Daniels
Followed by a few pearly pills filched from her mother's bedside drawer

It wouldn't matter

I stumbled home for three miles in the dark,
bleeding and crying and cursing
Knowing my life here was over

They would come for me
Not Sherriff Milchin, whose jurisdiction ended back at the town line
Not the feds from the mainland, who always came late if at all

They would come for me filled with rage and grief and a desire for vengeance
And I'd be found swinging from a tree
Or maybe not found at the bottom of the bay