Coward's Crossing

the coyote
thought it could
not enter heaven
without all parts of
its body, some went
fifty miles out of their
way to avoid the traps,

forbidden land
Coward's Crossing
on the Nez Perce, old
and bent now, the crone
isn't deaf, she hears the clicking
of hammers of repeating rifles and
scripture quoting for the eternal ride
to hereafter, she be ramblin' on,

Flatheads, Crows,
and Shoshone tied
their fallen to Nez Perce
ponies, and out of nowhere
Shakiah appeared, the woman
of old spirit, a medicine woman who
was polished in the art of staying alive
in the wilderness,

in her heavy
sheepskin coat,
Shakiah crossed
at Coward's Crossing
way ahead of the latter-day
arrivals, she saw reason to see
shadow of a knotted noose around
his neck for the rest of the days...and
so it was,

taught by nature
the coyote ran an
insignificant speck
over the high rimrock
cliff,

sage through
the ways of life
to the ways of survival
in this rugged landscape
where she will live ramblin'
on in the remaining quarter-century
of her life.

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist