If The World Asks

,

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s

Tell them I prayed hard

—for release, for the dam with the craze in it

to crumble. I could not weep. See,

my face is numb, eyes dry from the years

in the desert, beating the pavement with my cart

for groceries, or trade at the Buffalo Exchange.

I’d be dressed for anything, even Hollywood, and not

without my Fossil watch, lapis or turquoise beads,

leather sandals, tote slung over my shoulder like it cost

nothing—Just imagine, all that, in swirls of obsession:

heat and dust, and Thank Christ, topping it all off

with a check from somewhere—editor, publisher, friend,

rug or folk art dealer. I’d resume my work at night with the voices,

a cup of hot peppermint tea, and a wide bar of dark chocolate.

I saw the sands of the cities shifting,

become stone. Offices replacing horse stalls, getting us

more buses, but always off schedule. Remember though,

that tall, long drink of a Colorado boy, sweetest

visitor on those scorcher afternoons that led to the fall

dinners and readings, all of his brushed-silk tees,

the raw-edge Armani jacket.

Say—this time, I call myself Lucky

since you know I was, and no doubt,

drowning. Water was still there in Stillwater, Oklahoma!

You know I loved

my old cowgirl boots deep in It, and of course, a good joke.

No one’s ever going to get the whole story,

just me and my cats, my privacy intact, and

my breasts my own.

It will be much too late for anyone,

including you, to do a damn thing about it.

And that, you’ll have to know, was my business.