knotted and disfigured when the snow is falling in sepia

my hair is tangled and I have lost my comb
sepia stains on my pillow
the walkabout was a miscarriage
I am lost, without child
someone took a piece of my ass
the evidence is gone
the wolf is dead
and her pup is dying
the Frenchman is crying
in the court of public opinion,
who's the better mother
when the father holds the truth
in bitter scales
and his children feed the elephant
peanuts and tears?
how many poets does it take to
die an untimely death
until the lost boys of Sudan
return from their pilgrimage
through the hacking despair
of a world gone mad
and we dig deep enough
from our shared humanity
to give them water,
cool, clean water,
from our own living well
quenching this thirst we have
to die, unripened on the vine.

I trace circles on the dust of my
return.

I am raw with burnt umber, my tongue forms
continents.