Belle Starr's Daughter
J. Quinn Brisben
She delves in our equilibrium,
Knowing it must be punctuated
By upheavals, seeing
Some secret truth connecting
Green corn shoots splitting
Hard ground, overthrowing
Something always rebelled against
Even when we had no name for it,
Knowing only that our bodies
And what we worked on and with
Were rightfully ours.
Now she stands on the fault line
Far from Younger's Bend seeking
A labyrinthine thread in
An ecology renewed by fire
Among the plague victims,
Not waiting but working,
Recalling the dust of fields
In the dust of archives,
Hopeful for the cleansing rain,
Certain of the growing seeds.
