She drew the black bath of creation,
before hummingbird, or the western wind.
She spun the stars from crystals white and blue
as sunrise. She started their rotation.
The deer belong to her, and the sagebrush.
This valley is her valley, her road is
this road. Her footprints line the shoulder
where stricken animals wait for her kiss.
But the witches come, white like the poison
they bring to her with the promise of bliss,
and, forgetting the desert in a haze,
stumbling, numb, along the highway one night,
she drags a dead, half-glistening infant
still joined by the cord between her legs.
