Thursday, January 12, 2012

Grandmother by Sherman Alexie

old crow of a woman in bonnet, sifting through the dump
salvaging those parts of the world
neither useless nor useful

she would be hours in the sweatlodge
come out naked and brilliant in the sun
steam rising off her body in winter
like a slow explosion of horses

she braided my sisters’ hair with hands that smelled deep
roots buried in the earth
she told me the old stories

how time never mattered
when she died
they gave me her clock 

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