Can’t lick the witch wind that carries rumors
over shining aurora-lit prairies:
horror of what comes to light at the dawn
of the mind. Will you permit me to rise
from my sinkhole, to draw in the dirt
the garnet ring my grandmother sold for gas
just to survive? Arrive anonymous,
starved on hardtack and shame,
in this place where she was erased? How will
you animate this forgotten history?
Pepper the disarray with white-hooded
prairie schooners filled with calico-clothed
divas gathering their brood alongside
militant fathers donning wide-brimmed hats?
It’s natural to want to lie when you
look in the mirror, see you are naked
down to the crimes. Let me tell you, honey,
truth is the harmony your song has been
missing. Set down a soapbox and let me
step up and sing out about the naked
and the dead. The ghosts we’ve not yet seen clothe
the woods of your stories. Let your candy
apple cowboys die in their own desert
until my grandmother’s name is spoken
like the emergency it has become.
