Dear Uncle Chris, welcome back to my mind
   after so many years. Forgive me for
         not thinking you up sooner: the coiled-vine

The women from Yaddo’s kitchen
told us there’d be a parade.
(Ever since they were children—long before

A deer!—nibbling on the few green things
that grow in my strawy meadow.
Mine, we say here: my studio, my meadow, my road.

Bright discs of color satisfy my skin,
ornament this surface of self and flash a million meteors
across your dusty mirror. These are my mermaid’s scales

As a stunted woman (you might say
stunt) my body is every day
ready to explode in some crazy way.

They arrived and were so beautiful, it was sad
They refused to snatch you, too, the aliens.
Teenage warriors resplendent in their fatigues.

There are worlds, unwieldy, dreadful,
Difficult to grasp, just pick one up
And it grasps you, its grip of iron;

A yacht at night strung with lights on the black
tide rolls to the rhythm of a trio playing
"Waltz for Debbie." The Milky Way looks on

Silver crashed and the lights went out in Ashcroft.
A century passes in a dream.
Some houses stand,

She was born Sarah Gossett Ballenger—
Sarah our mother's proper name, Gossett our mother's
family name, Ballenger the name of her father.