After Stieglitz was gone,
in the fifties — later,
in the Ghost Ranch years,
I imagine her making
secret trips to Taos.
And where
Muerte,
Anderson’s,
Moon Baby Tattoo
are today
there must have been
a little place
off the plaza
where she got inked,
out of favor,
Manhattan culturati over
hollyhocks and skulls
as quickly as they staled
on clown car bows
and microskirts.
There is a photograph of her
from the late seventies,
sitting on a gnarled oneseed juniper
as though it was a bench,
in a navy-blue wrap
and canvas slippers.
Sensible shoes,
the kimono collar of her robe
framing a face the sun claimed
years before,
from
rock, chamisa.
Underneath the robe,
invisible to fame,
to confusion,
an earth dragon
with a peach in its mouth,
made of smoke, soot, grief,
circles her arm;
a grassland hare mimics
her melancholic smile,
a pineapple covers
a sailor’s cock;
a gray wolf is weeping.
When conservators cleaned
her paintings she insisted
they remove the dirt, even
if it took color with it,
even if the image suffered.
The secret of bone,
after all,
is
what
it
isn’t.
Too bleak and beautiful 