mantra review

A Cave Woman Speaks About Art

Daughters like sparrows, come.
Bison thunders my eyes.
Bring me retch-leaf. My drum.
Bring me a snow blind thigh

bone. Bison storms through my eyes.
Ochre sings in his Cave,
mouth with no tongue. I cry,
tremble the grandmothers’ graves.

Ochre sings in his Cave.
Bison runs the dark wall,
haunches, horns, shoulder blade.
Ochre’s flame flays my dream skull.

Bison runs the dark wall,
roars Let me out let me in
let me out on the drum of my skull
in the meat of, the curve of the stone.

I sing: Breathe us out breathe us in.
Let the barren thigh bleed.
Quicken the stone.
Lift the birds of the dead.

Let the barren thigh bleed.
Let Bison’s bones drum.
Lift the wings of the dead.
Daughters like sparrows, come.