Page 14 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
P. 14
sparkles in the steam of river light.
Her eyes glitter at the swooping birds.
Men weight their wives with venison antelope buffalo meat
make them walk for miles
for one small favor from the white man
a trinket
a handful of beads
a promise of plenty
dying in the shrill wind.
In the deep burr of sealing snow
women are struggling
their bones
quaking
the rattle of leaves falling forever
skittering over
ice.
They are not the beautiful women
men fight over.
The white men don’t see the wives who are hidden
in the lodges at the edges of lost
the women who carried the small-pox dead
to scaffolds
losing their fingers
in purging fires
of children
or women who gather bundles of sticks
in the frost-bitten winters of fever.
They are witches
who crawl hump-backed
their hands only palms/the webbed feet of ducks/work dogs to carry
meat.
