The fisherman
hip-deep in muddy water
waits for the tourist boat
to pass.
Cigarette dangling
his bright eyes never leave me.
When the tide turns, Barang,
they tell me
I’ll slit your throat.
The boat belches diesel.
We pick up speed.
Tag Archives: tourism
Tourist Boat, Tonle Sap, Cambodia
Monument Valley
A fat man on horseback rides into the sunset.
Blue jeans, red shirt, black cowboy hat.
“That’s Dave,” says Rosie over the microphone.
“He’ll stop there on the bluff for you, four minutes.”
The shutters click. He stands immobile.
Four minutes, and he trots towards the tourist bus;
heaves his redshirted belly off the little horse.
His face is dark and still.
This is the famous dignity of the Navajo people.
Two dollars for a photo of yourself astride his horse.
There are no takers. He just stands.
Later, in Suzie’s hogan, we watch her weave a rug.
She’s ninety-five, says Rosie, and almost blind
behind huge spectacles. When time is up
we file past her, from south to north, to show respect
and stuff a dollar in a cigar box. I saw Dave earlier
in Goulding’s campground store: a fat man
buying candy bars, something to keep him going
while he hitches up the trailer, loads the horse, and
drives out to the bluff over his nation’s holy land
to ride for tourists until the sun goes down.
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