Yupik Lesson

Nome is full of rusted things
Reddening in the quick sun of summer
The hard finish scrapes our hands
Oxidized flakes fall on our jeans

There are snow machines and generators
Ancient trucks with loads of rusty barrels
A bicycle left where its tire went flat
Cages for dogs that died or ran away

Outsiders see blight, say haul it away
Crush it, compact it, ship it, sell it
Native people say no, we keep it all
Rusted things have parts we can use

The old Yupik woman offers us salmon spread
Pilot crackers in a box opened yesterday
Shares her boarding school diary, letters home
Out her window, rusted things sit by the Bering Sea

Back home, our rusted things gather at the curb
Stacked, jangled, wrecked, waiting for burial
Yellow trucks like hearses deliver the bodies
Grass covers the hill, it is new, unblemished