Paper Water
After SB 2109
X threads us into rope, a weave of human
arms, X-ed down a canyon wall. Voice
is not written when nights like these
call for complete night, without
scraps of light or dissonance or a stuttered
cry. Crumble of tree limbs: X, there
we are again. This is how far we climb
for life. We’d rub out before reaching
the ground, where water cuts—
Once a man had only water to pray with.
Once life is like the blur of a windmill,
each crisscross sets another arm
to bark. Cessation of the line; break
it up there. Article X: delineate marginal
arcs, say everything within windmill shot—
Whereas injury to water was writ
and concluded: how far into the earth
will they reach? Whereas for groundwater,
they steady their wrists for a slow up-stitch
across their own eyelids.
More about Tacey Atsitty
Tacey M. Atsitty, Diné, is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People). Her maternal grandfather is Tábąąhí (Water Edge People) and her paternal grandfather is Hashk’áánhadzóhí (Yucca Fruit Strung-Out-In-A-Line People) from Cove, AZ.
She is a recipient of the Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, the Corson-Browning Poetry Prize, Morning Star Creative Writing Award, and the Philip Freund Prize. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University and the Institute of American Indian Arts, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, Kenyon Review Online, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, Literary Hub, New Poets of Native Nations, and other publications. Her first book is Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press, 2018).
She is the poetry judge for Eggtooth Editions chapbook contest, director of the Navajo Film Festival, a member of the Board of Directors for Lightscatter Press, a member of the Advisory Council for Brigham Young University’s Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, and member of the Advisory Board for the Intermountain All-Women Hoop Dance Competition. She is a PhD student in the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University.
She lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her husband.