The lay back women are cooking
gold in their iron pots
is smoking
toward a sky that will never speak
in this evening I hold them
bound in the skin of my mother
anxious and ugly as a lump of iron
wishing to be worked for gold
other forgotten faces
of her
flow into each other
over the clatter
of remembered bargains
reluctant barter
I wonder
how many of these women (my sisters)
still have milk in their breasts.