Yet another cabin poem # z 1971

In the cabin that spring soon as I was pregnant
you took up with Light-haired Sandy—
the men started dropping by just to see
hoping I was loose since everyone knew
I was a fool not knowing you did
whatever you did with her—she, pretty
strawberry blonde all about her hair
creamy skin and tall flat-bellied body
brain-dead as a milk can but that didn’t stop you

When Denny showed up instead of you one night
I still didn’t get it—he asked if I was lonesome
hung around a bit, mentioned how with you
in town a lot—he’d been wondering
Light-haired’s step-brother-in-law
I had no desire for him or
a good dose of trouble with his gang-y girlfriend
Light-hair’s step-sister, Dark-haired Sandy
I may as well have fallen on my sword cuz she
sure enough would’ve cut me up like a carcass

Geronimo found reasons to check on his cows
milling around the valley, most of which was his
but me and him, no way possible—his 60 something
wife Amalia would’ve shot me through the eyes
had him bury me without a prayer or a single fare thee well
besides, he was laughably old—had me walk on ice with him
and I could see the plan, he grabbing my arm as I inevitably
slipped

Fermin, of course, had come calling before your indiscretion
telling me at the woodpile how much we’d need, how
winters in Vallecitos were nothing to make light of
He knew it was a no cuz I’d snubbed him every time
I had to pass his house for access to the gorge—
the back way to our place in the valley below
One sunny day after walking the high road in to check the mail
buy tortillas at Willy’s, say hi, maybe, to the Sandys
Fermin jumped out from behind a big boulder
along the deep gorge path. He held my arms and
shook me a little as if I were a piggy bank. “Oh for God’s
sake, Fermin,—stop it!” He asked me then, another tack
could he and a few of his cousins come down to the cabin
and rape me some night. “No,” I answered carefully
learning a shit load about his culture in that one question
“No, I wouldn’t like that” looking right at him, my eyes an open blade
He looked down since eye contact was verboten. “Ok,” he said
“I thought maybe you’d want us to do that. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I told him, as if he were a child, already summoning up
the teacher voice inside me; I could finally hear her
in the quiet of that canyon
Perhaps she had said yes lifetimes ago, to the wrong man
I getting the second chance she hadn’t been afforded

What I loved so much of you was when you smiled lying next to me
What I loved so much when alone were the rose hips
on that sunny trail, the creek, deep and cool, winding
around glorious boulders, leaves floating downstream
through Aspen groves, the fields between our tiny cabin
and the creek, the hill beside us
with the brown bear scrambling up at sunset
Jesus, even beavers at the meadow where we first landed
and men who took no for an answer—no one spoiled that place for me
I love that you gave me a sewing machine, a trunk, and my son
and how I learned through you to say no with authority