Calico Prints
It was morning when she left, her pockets filled with bones. After she built a fire she stepped towards the hogan door. A small stack of round flat bread steamed beneath cloth. At the sides of aspen, she staggered northeast, barefoot towards the tree line. Her hands dripped yucca root foam. One hand gripped her stomach. The other reached towards the line where mountain flats break the blue contour. She was on her knees when it exploded— her mudded skirt, her clayed fingers held ghost beads. It was the water she drank, soaked tailings. She’d lain in sheepskin many nights, damped. That morning the firmament unraveled into a bolt of aqua calico waving. She stepped into yards of apricot blooms, carried herself in her skirt steps and steps. Stemless blossoms. She followed the patterns of earth, and saw how they matched the floral sky:
her children tracked staggered footprints to the edge of the wash.