Sacagawea Shapiro

I have this friend who's one of the funniest people I know. Here's an example: We were visiting at The Eola Hotel one night and she's talking about this guy she knows.

Rachel: Well, you know, he's, like, really cool. He's a marine or navy seal or something and he actually killed Saddam Hussein's accountant.

Me:

Rachel:

Me: He killed who?

Rachel: Saddam Hussein's accountant.

Julie the Bartender: What was he doing? Crunching the numbers or something?

Me: I mean, yeah. How dangerous can an accountant be? Did he take away his calculator or something?

Rachel: Well, I dunno. But he was SADAM HUSSEIN'S accountant... 

Me:

Rachel...And I feel really bad about shooting him (the guy who shot Saddam Hussein's accountant) that one time.

Tommy: You SHOT him??

Me: You SHOT him? Where??

Rachel: In the back Forty. The pasture.

Me:

Rachel: Well, we were bird hunting and there was this low-flying bird just over a hill.

Tommy: You mean you Dick Cheney'd him?

Rachel: Yeah.

The whole night was like that. She's part Indian and part jewish. I mean, she could be a jewish Indian princess. We decided she should do a standup routine and call herself Sacagawea Shapiro.

Cocodrie Bayou

I drive through miles
of cotton fields.
White tufts erupt
from bolls
like butterflies
from cocoons.

The Louisiana
delta spreads out,
offers herself
like a lover
with secrets.

She sings primitive
salutations to the sun,
gospels of slaves.

On one side, the fields;
on the other, dark, wooded swamp.

Palmettos punctuate the gloom.
Cypress and still water.

Mounds built by Indians
who weren't from India,
after all, remind me.


This place is ancient.

My father brought me hunting here.
His father brought him.
I miss them.

It seems so
long ago, but it is only an
instant, and I am
just passing through.

I am a storm in summer,
all rush and splash, bluster
and boom,
sudden but brief, leaving only
vapor when I'm gone.

Elodie Pritchartt
09/25/12