Sally

Her palms were like the leather they tan

with oak bark that’s rough as her

creviced heels. People said – 

in taverns, in fields, at hearthsides – 

that her hair was unkempt

but she always braided it back

so the wolves could see

her puddle eyes, polluted

with the soot of domestic fires. 

.

Her lips took the shapes of the names of her children – 

primrose, hummingbird, dock leaf, elder – 

they weren’t as soft as the husbands 

secretly dreamt. 

They were cracked dry from 

too much of the sun’s love, 

like the husbands’ fields after drought. 

Dreams and drought came together, 

nurturing seedlings of accusation. 

.

Her trees grew just taller, 

shoulders resolute. They counted

her amongst the magpies,

imagined a blue sheen in

her hair cast against 

the whites of her eyes – 

for sorrow, for joy, for girl, for boy.