Kansas

He went up into Kansas in the darkling of the year and
lay with her, she
opened slowly
her petals
a sunflower in the first heat, his
bright-dark featherwings
enfolded and contained her
brought her
into his healing her
aura swelled
pulsed with her need to take wing she was
new-minted
like the young deer at the watering place, he was
lately returned from the Plain of the Wolves where he had spent a season
painting clouds with her. . .

His rough sheepskin bloodied her skin as he breathed life.

When she rides out in the morning she feels the life
growing within, growing with each
skitterstep
of her mount over gopher holes she

enters her cabin in the woods with faltering step
and waits
waits for her flower to open.

Out of her writhe-sweat he comes again…out of her…
new-minted in his first squalling…
suckling to her breast.

Out on the prairie he floats lightly, her
nectar purple on his tongue…
...feeling his calling home.

POSTSCRIPT

The child has big glorious eyes
hypnotic in their plea for safety it
peeps into the radiance of their love—taking succor it’s
big round eyes laughing its
skin so warm it
feels so loved.

Kingston, Ontario, Canada Groundhog Day 2004

Just before she ran off with a rancher from Indiana (Indiana?) I said “What do you want from me?” and she said “Come to Kansas—run the ranch—make us rich,” and then when he left her—just weeks later—she mumbled “Guess I’m back to riding the wire.”