* * * * *
Grandmother goddess
1.
she stepped out of her cabin in calico cotton
looked once at the sun, wiped
the cold sweat off her forehead
from chopping bacon in July
& pete, who once was named
Rolling Clouds on Storm
sat on the ground with a brown bottle
sneering at something
2.
it must have been his magazine
it must have been the 40-yr old white
lady in black leather
mounting the bike and revving it
choking on the poster dust
the men said--
“well, it’s a nice-looking Harley”
left it at that
3.
grandmother’s trading post
can provide a guide,
turn your glass beads to kerosine
make it rain or call an eagle,
- - so choose, bargain, or rent
4.
raccoon-hat man, he needed a guide
so that summer grandmother took him up the trail
eating blackberries all the time.
spitting them out. swatting black flies.
well past the tree line.
Oh he looked right down he did,
far as he could
“stranger don’t drink the water
the river, it’s a silver snake
come to lick your boots”
raccoon-hat at the first river
took off his boots,
in handfuls lapped the mercury water
& sickened took to eating fists of wildgrass
slicked feathers
5.
--in short, he was never the same,
naked from the waist down for waiting so long
like a picture poster
looking with blistered eyes for
the goddess in the waterfall
6.
grandmother,
she went back down, and made supper -
potatoe pie & bacon.
20.2000
* * *
Babushka
Old woman with silver hair scratched back
who could imagine you with a shaved head!
She is Baba, grandmother, they said,
fingers of barbed wire ghosts.
2.
“It’s the unrevealed journey,” murmured another,
a woman translating your prayers.
"Why don't we die clean, like the animals?
like the Prophets with the blessed knife?
"Here we are for shame of it, bits and pieces of us
clinging alive to our own eyes" -
3.
I couldn't reach up to her eyes
to see what sense I could make of it,
all of us temporary tenants-a Quebec ghetto
where I was the only child around.
4.
But the small stool was just right
for my small legs
to reach the bathroom sink.
I said, "How does the soap stay clean
after washing so many dirty hands?"
20.2000
* * *
Night
1.
the moon was a wishbone
in a night of promises
i lingered by a willow
in long skirts, and lay by the banks
2.
i have also seen the moon change
to a bare skull shining
pock-marks and fallen teeth
a whole head of grief
i walked quickly and alone,
green blades of cicadas in mourning
3.
last night the moon
was a spine of fear
tingling, old
a bright twisted light
is this what my grandmother meant
when she said, "I will see you again, surely"
4.
tonight's moon
at last went out
i lit lanterns along the way
as i walked feverish in the woods of snow
* * * *
(c) Brenda Fleet 2000
* * *