PROSE POETRY
DA BORER
AMERICAN WOMAN
(for Amanda Gorman)
She came from the lightning cloud. A storm of ashes. A bolt of luck. Out of Butte and Virginia City and the mining camps on the Great Divide. Surged the energy of seamstress, wet nurse, harlot, homemaker, and washer woman. Han, Choctaw, Scot, Blackfoot, Kongo, Welsh, Igbo, Irish, Crow, Rus. The world is a petticoat, a tub of suds, a naked back, a hidden razor, a loaded song. She sings a silent prayer to children living children dead, husband in a box six feet long and under. Here in the cage the gold dust rains down as a greasy ring of smoke escapes the pipe of her keeper. Beat me again, O Lord, split my breasts with your sword, spike my hands to the cross, I will come and come and come again. There is no stopping her.
She came from the lightning cloud. A storm of ashes. A bolt of luck. Out of Butte and Virginia City and the mining camps on the Great Divide. Surged the energy of seamstress, wet nurse, harlot, homemaker, and washer woman. Han, Choctaw, Scot, Blackfoot, Kongo, Welsh, Igbo, Irish, Crow, Rus. The world is a petticoat, a tub of suds, a naked back, a hidden razor, a loaded song. She sings a silent prayer to children living children dead, husband in a box six feet long and under. Here in the cage the gold dust rains down as a greasy ring of smoke escapes the pipe of her keeper. Beat me again, O Lord, split my breasts with your sword, spike my hands to the cross, I will come and come and come again. There is no stopping her.
DA Borer came to poetry after many other stops and starts. Doug's creative writing appears in The Write Launch, Everyday Fiction, The San Antonio Review, Litro Magazine, and other outlets. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and lives in Pacific Grove, California.
