Martha Jane Canary Reflects, by Stacy Boe Miller

Calamity Jane. Photographer unknown.

Martha Jane Canary Reflects

I explored my sins wide open
the way the plains exposed themselves

to white men, and me, almost
one of them in rough cut

buckskin and breeches, mustang panting 
between my thighs. But not quite 

man enough to hold at a distance 
their stares, hands, breath

on my face in Deadwood's 
dark. I let them raid me

the way we crashed through
camps, torched teepees, broke

the sacred, and stole flesh for show.
By the time you came, Bill, the unbridled

sun had blistered my face saddle brown.
Rough wind had uncovered 

my thirst as endless as Montana 
sky when I rode beside my father, 

before I understood the slice 
of my knife deep in skin, singe 

of gunpowder in my lungs, lost 
lives behind me, a gaping stab 

left by wild things I caught 
but could not tame.

Stacy Boe Miller

Stacy Boe Miller is an artist, mother, and second year poetry candidate in the MFA Creative Writing program at the University of Idaho. Her most recent work can be found in Mary Jane's Farm Magazine, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, and Mothers Always Write, where an essay of hers was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.