Virgin Prairie

This old squaw of a prairie 
with no fence or furrow wrinkles 
squats by a country cemetery 
under the shelter of a lost deed. 
She wraps herself in a blanket 
of buffalo grass, beaded with 
shooting stars, sweet alyssum, 
fringed gentians, tiny yellow and 
lavender petals, with wild roses 
tangled in vines. She dreams 
the memory of a wigwam empty now 
save ashes whose breath rises 
​in ghost smoke of the past.