Can’t lick the witch wind that carries rumorsover shining aurora-lit prairies:horror of what comes to light at the dawnof the mind. Will you permit me to risefrom my sinkhole, to draw in the dirtthe garnet ring my grandmother sold for gasjust to survive? Arrive anonymous,starved on hardtack and shame,in this place where she was erased? How willyou animate this forgotten history?Pepper the disarray with white-hoodedprairie schooners filled with calico-clotheddivas gathering their brood alongsidemilitant fathers donning wide-brimmed hats?It’s natural to want to lie when youlook in the mirror, see you are nakeddown to the crimes. Let me tell you, honey,truth is the harmony your song has beenmissing. Set down a soapbox and let mestep up and sing out about the nakedand the dead. The ghosts we’ve not yet seen clothethe woods of your stories. Let your candyapple cowboys die in their own desertuntil my grandmother’s name is spokenlike the emergency it has become.