Issue
#9 

a poem by Vivian Faith Prescott

The Real Road to Nowhere  

We tell the tourists to drive to the other-side-of-the-island
to find the mall where they'll find some great deals on 
souvenirs from China, and they nod heads and ask to take
photos of us--Alaska's pale Indians--and they touch my 
daughter's long hair and they pinch her cheeks and call her
Eskimo and we smile and say 'go-ahead-shoot-us-again' 
and they snap off a few and then head off in their rental car
all smiling and we wave politely as they drive off on our 
ten miles of paved road then roll on down the gravel 
logging roads for about a hundred miles, going this-way-
and-that, driving over pot holes and bear shit until they find
themselves at a dead end, a log-loading ramp left by a 
logging company that drops off into the ocean, because 
they came in on a ship and asked us how high above sea-
level we are and then maybe we wonder what happens to 
all those tourists who are seeking a road outta here, a road
to the mall, a road to see the civilized population, trying to 
find the igloos and the reservations where the real Indians
live, and maybe from a hundred miles away on the other-
side-of-the-island they can hear the echo of our war cries.

© by Vivian Faith Prescott
 
Gutter Eloquence Magazine ~ Issue #9 ~ May 2010