A Mind Divided

We sit cross-legged on the desert hard-pack

our knees pointing in fleshy arrows

East

and West.

Your headdress ripples in the air’s hot breath

lichen

feathers

bone and blood.

“Child,” you say, one finger stirring the red dust between us.

I tremble

and the wooden husk around me cracks.

A three-year-old’s laughter bubbles up from

forgotten safe-keeping

and wets the parched earth.

“Mother,” you say, your finger carving circles in the soft mud.

I rise from the stiff petals to gather in the laughter

and take, instead, a child.

Like cottonwood seed her hair drifts across the breeze

to kiss my cheek.

She fits snugly on my hip.

“Woman,” you say, your eyes bright in our thin shadow.

The ground shudders

and I feel the pulse through my feet

up my thighs.

The pull of Earth and Moon echoes deep within, joining me

to the ancient Seas

to the Goddess.

I step out of the broken hull, stoop, and touch the heaving ground.

Corn springs from the mud at my fingers

shooting across the moist land unto the horizon.

The child laughs

and chews a tender leaf.

“Heroine,” you say, cornsilk now added to your headdress.

The child’s arms circle my neck as we turn

and walk into the welcoming corn.

October 26, 1990