What woman has a country? Always she's
the alien in a male nation, papers
disheveled, visa date blurred, her strategies
for sanctuary require that she barter
self for place within the borders or else, misfit,
illegal, grow lean upon her loneliness,
a susurrus of shadow at the limits.
Where has she journeyed from, she dispossessed
of all hands hold, companioned only by
the fair wind of memory? --in desert quiet
a windmill's piston creaks to prophecy
the small cry of water in the dust, or the duet
of a raven echoing its martinal [or matinal?]
voice and shadow on river, on canyon wall.
--Karen Swenson
My mother liked this poem and sent it to me.
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