david hadbawnik

 
 

 

Pocahontas

iv.


The one I love flows neither back nor forth.

But count the rivers anyway,

unbraid them, make up clever names

to confuse the Indians, this

the woman thinks – let’s call her

Pocahontas. Older now, no longer

the girl who saved John Smith,

but standing with her back to him

in a quiet drawing room in London,

married to a man named Rolfe.

Both of them will die here

far from Jamestown and Chesapeake Bay.

The one I love, she thinks, rocks

under the wobbly tongue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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