Yum!

At the Red Robins of Wilmington, North Carolina,
not the one on McClintock Drive in Tempe, Arizona,
Not So Rez Girl is sitting at the table across from Shimá,
who is sitting diagonally from her, sitting next to Soldier Boy.

Staring at the wall in front of her, Not So Rez Girl
glances left as Mr. Beer's googly eyes mumble, "I love you, man."
You know what? I love you too, Mr. Beer.

On the other side of the wall to the right of her,
Not So Rez Girl glares at Lady Wine seducin
cross-eyed whispering, "You should text him."
Noooo, not today Wine Lady!

Not So Rez Girl orders a cheeseburger and fries
as if she doesn't already eat that once a week, but
when the food is ready and she takes two bites,
she has to go to the bathroom. She walks to the back
of the restaurant past all the background tables
and families and is alone in a restroom stall where
she starts to shit.

She doesn't know why she is always shitting in restaurant bathrooms,
or why she has a hard time existing in restaurants in the first place.
She washes her hands and walks amidst the backgrounds of others
sitting exclusively at dining tables until she's back at her own.

Soldier Boy leaves the table early to go get a haircut.
They don't let warriors grow their hair out like they used to anymore.
Long appendages of knowledge, Soldier Boy will never wear a tsiiyéél
in this lifetime or look anywhere close to resembling an old hastiin.

Left alone with Shimá at the table, Not So Rez Girl tries to take
a few more bites from her burger. "I can't finish it," is all she can say.
"Well don't eat it then," Shimá replies across from her at the table.
She always knew her daughter could never finish her food;
she never held this against her.

Not So Rez Girl packs her food to-go well aware of the fact that
she would be hungry again since she barely ate her burger or fries.
She is glad to finally leave the table to go exist somewhere else,
stepping out into the cloudy North Carolina world which was nothing
like the sunny one that existed whenever she left the Red Robins
on McClintock Drive in Tempe, Arizona.

At the Teec Nos Pos Trading Post

Around 4 PM after being picked up
from school, Not So Rez Girl, Shimá,
and Soldier Boy stop by a trading post
so that Soldier Boy can look around to
see if he finds anything worth buying.

Soldier Boy has never been to this trading post before;
neither has Not So Rez Girl. The two of them have never
even been around Teec Nos Pos that much anyways.

The trading post operates very much as a gas station,
a grocery store, and a souvenir shop; they sell postcards,
yarn, pottery, herbs, turquoise, flour, meat, and Mountain Dew.

Soldier Boy looks around as Shimá guides him on these things,
showing him a Hopi clown and telling him of a relative who saw
one come to life at night in another relative's home one time.

No one sees anything to buy. It's a quick trip
and they're back on the road. Looking at the time
and circumstance, Not So Rez Girl recalls when
her father would pick her up after school and ask, "Shell or Exxon?"
buying her whatever snack she wanted before going home.

There used to be a Conoco on the corner of Shimá's hometown.
There are only two gas stations in all of Shimá's hometown.
The Conoco is now a Speedway and the Marathon is fronted by 7/11;
fuel pumps on the run.

Not So Rez Girl looks at the school buses
en tribal route and wonders what it would
have been like if she went to school on the rez.
She wonders if she's made any lasting imprint
on her white friends.

Shimá tells Soldier Boy that this is Rock Point.
She points out the whale to him and where some
other relatives live; he is not acquainted with them.
Not So Rez Girl listens in on what she tells him, the
places where Shimá spent time as a child, or how
there's a face in that mesa over there if you look on the
other side.

She wants Shimá to tell Soldier Boy about what
she told her about the hole in the mesa near Round Rock,
how during the age of horses and wagons, whenever
young Navajo girls used to run off at night, in the
morning their mothers made them climb through
the hole, and if they made it through, they were
deemed virgins.

Not So Rez Girl liked that landmark anecdote
for some reason. It felt morbid and biblical.
She wanted to tell everyone about that hole,
she wanted to be able to tell stories like that,
she wanted to be a storyteller.