Religion
leached from
wormwood, godly
hallucination, it was
not preached, it spoke
its message soft from below
the loft, framed in hames The
Oath of the Holy Apothecary
Journals surrounded by flames,
silver spurs in alchemical spin
atop pulpit pontification,
four women
appeared on
horseback over
the white powder
gold dust horizon
in spiritual rejuvination,
rainbow
bodies cinched
the underbelly,
The Sundance Wives
fat with independence,
lean of intolerance, the
hooves transported the
sermon distilled of wormwood,
"teach your daughters the wisdom
of these Four - pray for your daughters
souls the way to authentication",
and then,
the dust devil
swirled open the
gates of Doogun Hill,
aged barnwood laughter
shot four brass bullets from
each iron to silence the Voice,
Lucifer's auctioneer sells his fast
talk to Satan, The Sundance Wives
need no justification,
we
heard
we fucked
wayward wives,
we heard we toted
and traded contraband
and bibles for Pussy to a
woman in a long cool black
dress, Madam Antonella of the
Church of Brothels,
we
heard
we held
up our bidding
cards just for the
sake of buying the
golden spurs to rib
Satan,
but
the Truth
doesn't refund
the scars of the
rowels, we own
permanence and
we wear those marks
well, the sun-bleached
boards on the corral leach
the religion of wormwood to
those we reach, the psychic
tumbleweed, the spirit of
whiskey and the divining
of clove reside at the gates
of Doogun Hill, our property
surrounded by skeins of rusted
barbed wire where the Philosopher's
Stone is buried not too deep at the
tomb of Pick and her partner Ax,

four women
appeared on
horseback over
the white powder
gold dust horizon
in spiritual rejuvination,
we
bared
our souls,
birthed our
foals, the tales
grew longer as the
tails grew longer, the
gossip no longer fits into
a quart Mason, it pours out
into the streets at the horse
trough where they water their
animals,
we
heard
we grained
with the plural
wives to learn how
to be; Amish and Mennonites
own the town tithe bee hives,
we
heard
we castrated
men with their
own knives,
we
heard
we sent
our foals back
on the rails for the
covens to disperse,
we
heard
the descendants
of Doc Holliday hitched
a team with descendants
of Aleister Crowley and carried
our printing press via stagecoach
to publish our verse in Tombstone,
we
heard
one of us
was a taylor's
wife on loan, a
seamstress who
stood before the
miners wives bare
breasted who took
the blouse off her back
to trade for the last gold
thimble,
we
heard
one of us
was a minister
traveling with bordello
lace and perfumed garters
locked in her suitcase,
we
heard
one of us
was a witch
who straddled
a telegraph pole
in the vanity of self
love,
we
heard
one of us
was a circuit
rider judge who
wore one buttery brown
doeskin gauntlet glove, out
to avenge a lawman who threw
her in the hole,
The
Sundance
Wives fat
with independence,
lean of intolerance, the
hooves transported the
sermon distilled of wormwood,
"teach your daughters the wisdom
of these Four - pray for your daughters
souls the way to authentication",

four women
appeared on
horseback over
the white powder
gold dust horizon
in spiritual rejuvination.
Copyright 9/25/09 Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist