She was no Victoria

this faded sepia woman
in full regalia. Sunlight-stained photo

a gravemarker
anyone can see

you existed in
two worlds. You loved well

in both, but lived well

in neither.

The only thing you would never stop wanting:

his arms at night. His snore.

What you would remember:

the times you feigned sleep.

He loved to watch you

brush your hair.

This picture says you lived to see your children and grand-children

walk down a hundred paths paved with bad intentions.

You faced down the fear of lighting your fire at night,

because every scenario brought a wolf. It says you grew

wider, wilder, wiser, wished

for death.

The first winter after the soldiers left for their home, yours still smoking -
that winter your youngest child named for the father

he never saw

froze to death in his sister's arms. That night you had snared
a winter-thin jackrabbit. You didn't
cry.

Skinning the rabbit was

like undressing an unruly child in too-tight clothes.

You have a scar still on your hand. Just there.

You were the rabbit and the snare.

Beneath wolfwillow you dug a hole

buried your own tongue, mermaid of

the plains.

When the bush was cut down, an entire world in the roots.
Sweep the sky clean.