Poem by Nyla Alisia

Displaced, accepted for publication in the

2011 issue of The Gold Man Review.

Displaced

(My toes sink in and sweet-grass makes room. A prairie flower may be plucked from this place but her roots cannot be torn from the red soil. --My journal, Wyoming - July 17 1993)

The prairie

so far away,

closing eyes,

I am there still.

Warm wind

makes love to skin.

Thunderheads roll

the horizon

like ghost-dust

remembering buffalo.

Summer washes sky

barely blue,

more bleached

than bones.

Wading deep,

sweet-grass waves

tickle legs.

White poppies

intoxicate

bumble bees

large as pony beads,

wings drumming hard.

I was born

already buried

in this place,

womb of thought

brings rebirth,

delivers me

to red-soil earth.

Lingering palpable,

a heartbeat

heard even now,

it's melody

calling me back.

I am

bound there still,

veins running wildness,

I feel it

inside,

the mustang

pounding in my chest.

Nyla Alisia - Oregon 2008