I Flew Into Denver April

Adrian C. Louis

(1946 - 2018)

Some poems that reference "April" in the title end on a sweet note. Not this one. Sometimes things are not as they seem.

I Flew Into Denver April

I flew into Denver April.

Rock salt and sand peppered the asphalt

reflecting myself on a downtown street

where I’d paused on my route to smell lilacs.

The wanton winds chortled wickedly

over remnant snows in gray clumps of doom

and my heart soared gladly at winter’s death

but an hour later I had whiskey breath

at a dead end bar full of Indians.

A Winnebago woman waltzed with me

and told me how handsome I truly was

so I bought her drinks and felt her hips

and somewhere between the grinds

and dips she lifted my wallet and split.

About the poet: Adrian C. Louis was born and raised in northern Nevada and is a member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. Louis taught at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and Southern Minnesota State University. He is currently Professor of English at Minnesota State University in Marshall. A collection of his poems came out from West End Press.