MOLLY MCGLENNEN on
​
Luci Tapahonso
Hills Brothers Coffee

My uncle is a small man.
In Navajo, we call him, "shidá'í,"
               my mother's brother.

He doesn't know English,
               but his name in the white way is Tom Jim.
               He lives about a mile or so
               down the road from our house

One morning he sat in the kitchen,
drinking coffee.
               I just came over, he said.
               The store is where I'm going to.

He tells me about how my mother seems to be gone
every time he comes over.
               Maybe she sees me coming
               then runs and jumps in her car
               and speeds away!
               he says smiling.

We both laugh-- just to think of my mother
jumping in her car and speeding.

I pour him more coffee
and he spoons in sugar and cream
until it looks almost like a chocolate shake.
Then he sees the coffee can.
               Oh, that's the coffee with the man in a dress,
               like a churchman.
               Ah-h, that's the one that does it for me.
               Very good coffee.

I sit down again and he tells me,
               Some coffee has no kick.
               But this one is the one.
               It does it good for me.

I pour us both a cup
and while we wait for my mother,
his eyes crinkle with the smile and he says,
               Yes, ah yes. This is the very one
               (putting in more sugar and cream).

So I usually buy Hills Brothers Coffee.
Once or sometimes twice a day,
I drink a hot coffee and

               it sure does it for me. 

Molly McGlennen was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is of Anishinaabe and European descent.  Currently, she is a Professor of English and Native American Studies at Vassar College.  McGlennen is the author of two collections of poetry: Fried Fish and Flour Biscuits, published by Salt’s award-winning Earthworks Series of Indigenous writers, and Our Bearings, published by the University of Arizona’s distinguished Sun Tracks series.  McGlennen also authored a critical monograph Creative Alliances: The Transnational Designs of Indigenous Women’s Poetry from the University of Oklahoma Press, which earned the Beatrice Medicine Award for outstanding scholarship in American Indian Literature.