South of My Days
All things conspire—toy trains to a child,
a train journey rattling through drought-year dust,
where Egrets rise from the northern marshes—wild
white ghosts against the legend of sky—in a wind gust.
A dispirited native born in the company of lovers,
warped, bullock shoulders beneath the sun’s gaze,
She watches magpies carve the wind and hovers—
White birds mocking the failure of communion days.
A naked girl drawing herself in the mirror catches the light,
No longer a girl, turning fifty in the old prison of time,
a method drinker—lost in requests during a year of blight,
trapped wild dogs howling through the dark—a byline.
South of my days, in lyric the bull still runs,
killer hoof-beats drumming the papers of earth.
Sisters whisper sonnets to the past, like nuns.
and a surfer waits for the wave to birth.
To a child, in spirit, the world is still wide—
but woman to child, I know too well the cost.
The name squaw is silent now, as I will not abide,
for I remember what we forget, what we lost.
WoPoLi 
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