How the West Was Won

We learned,
with some difficulty, 
through the Greyhound Bus Lines,
how the west was won.

We gathered
threadbare blankets
and canned pasta,
the mason jar of coins
in the back of my closet
I'd started to save
after the Christmas
without any presents.

Rolling our sparse belongings
into bedrolls
like we imagined our warrior 
ancestry had been forced to do,
we walked the ten miles
to the only Greyhound station
left.

Pushing the jar of chunk change
under the security grate,
always a security grate
to keep us away
from them,
the woman frowned
but printed two tickets.

She stared at our braids 
the whole time,
this white woman with 
pert breasts
and sad eyes
working her life
in a glass cage.

We tipped imaginary hats.

The bus, lit with 
flickering fluorescents
lurched onto the dusty highway,
full of tired white men
and a hispanic woman
with a caged chicken.

Rolling away
east we knew
how the west was won,
two Indian boys
with glossy black braids
knew,
with the blood of
our people in the earth,
feeding our mother.
We knew
it was won by getting
the hell out 
while there was still time left.