James Welch, “The Only Bar in Dixon” (1971)

These Indians once imitated life.
Whatever made them warm
they called wine, song or sleep,
a lucky number on the tribal roll.

Now the stores have gone the gray
of this November sky. Cars
whistle by, chrome wind, knowing
something lethal in the dust.
A man could build a reputation here.

Take that redhead at the bar—
she knows we’re thugs, killers
on a fishing trip with luck.
No luck. No room for those
sensitive enough to know they’re beat.

Even the Flathead turns away,
A river thick with bodies,
Indians on their way to Canada.
Take the redhead—yours for just a word,

a promise that the wind will warm
and all the saints come back for laughs.

James Welch, “The Only Bar in Dixon,” in Riding the Earthboy 40: Poems (1971; Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997), 39.