"i Stand" and "A Love Poem to My Books"

i Stand

i have a Great Plains laugh; it floats across the prairie and collides with the Rockies who then echo it to me but it sounds different

                                  it says: remember where you were born

i was the desert child, the sagebrush serenader, the coyote caller

rendezvous with the Cheyenne and the other little girls put ribbons in your hair

i tattooed a dreamcatcher on my arm, the feathers pointing in each direction

so that i can always find my way home to the place where my father stood and said,

                                  today is a good day to die

i knew Sitting Bull before sitting pretty

and images of bareback warriors protecting the tribe lulled me to sleep in the thud of the wild mustangs hooves

                                  i have crossed deserts, meadows, mountains, and oceans

to get away from my white (wo)man’s burden

drowning my trail of tears in firewater

but there you stand

speaking for the mother whose voice we can no longer hear

once again saying,

                                  this is not yours

                                  she is not ours

A Love Poem to My Books

i see you, my beauties, in front of me

and lament your loss to those who will listen

but tomorrow you will be in a true gypsy’s hand

the ones who speak Romanian who will sell you who will burn you for kindling

and my darlings, isn’t that a better fate than to follow me?

in my madness, my pursuit of pleasure, my chaos?

never again will i throw you against the wall next to my lover’s head

or tattoo you with a black pen whenever i see the word freedom

this eurotrash affair has been as curious as i imagined it

and it continues in a different direction

a new language, a new love, a new experience

i carry you in my heart always

and this farewell is merely a pause

we’ll find each other again in pride and peril

and i will welcome you, my secret loves

blossom under the feel of strangers’ fingers

and think of me as i am curled in his arms thinking of you