OWN IT! STANDING ROCK    [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

They talk of corn – Caribbean blue.

Tri-gold. Matt-white.

Geordie, Tipperary Tigress

Astride her sun-kissed vale.

Vittoria, immigrant. Mother

To three at eighteen

Light years. And ~

Melissa, stately in deer-hide

Polishing a nation’s bloodstone.

 

“You are the husk of our dawn star,”

They intone. “You are

What’s left of the coupe...”

 

I am the Straw Woman

Cross-stitching

My own eyelids

Where

The bone-walk’s

One half octave

Away.

 

 

 

OLD SOULS      [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

I take it, the crust

Of the moment,

One word

At a time

 

... Move it

Cross country

Past the livery

Stable, the train’s

 

Box-cars – all

‘A hoot’

On the half hour

Siding where

 

... Just like great-

Grandma,

I put it in

A pipe

 

And smoke it.

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