old grandmother

 

old crow of a woman in bonnet, sifting through the dump

salvaging those parts of the world

neither useless nor useful

 

she would be hours in the sweatlodge

come out naked and brilliant in the sun

steam rising off her body in winter

like a slow explosion of horses

 

she braided my sister's hair with hands that smelled deep

roots buried in the earth

she told me the old stories

how time never mattered

when she died

they gave me her clock

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