You died. And because you were Greek they gave you a coin to carry under your tongue and then also biscuits and honey. When you came to the riverbank you saw a crazy-looking black bumboat on the water with a figure standing in it, lanky and dressed darkly, holding a sweep. You were taken across, and you gave your coin for the passage, and continued until you came to a three-headed dog, who snarled and threatened you, even though you were not trying to escape. You gave him the biscuits smeared with honey, and you passed onward to the field of asphodel and through the gate of Tartarus. Or you died and you were Navajo. They had carried you out of the hogan earlier so you'd die in the sunshine. Or if it happened inside suddenly, they stuffed up the smokehole and boarded the front entrance, and cut an opening in the back, the north-facing, dark-facing side, to carry you out, and no one ever used that hogan again. They took off your moccasins and put them on again wrong side to, the left one on the right foot, the right on the left, so that your @3chindi@1 would be confused and unable to return along your tracks. They washed your hair in suds made from the yucca. Then they gave you enough fried bread and water to last four days, and you set off on your journey. But actually none of these things happened. You just died. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME by STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER THE VANISHING BOAT by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE IN NOVEMBER by ANNE REEVE ALDRICH IN THE DEEP WHITE SNOW by ANNE ATWOOD THE CONSOLATION by ANNE BRONTE MESSENGERS by BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH BUGAYEV ADDRESS FOR MISS FONTENELLE by ROBERT BURNS |