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.