This is the day she finds bones in the creek,
cold and cracked as split lips.

This is the day she digs at the clay,
pulls out bone after bone
until she has enough

to make a man. This is the way
she lays him out, in snakeskin

and sweetgrass; this, the way
the cattails bend
’til the prudish stones

murder the willows.
The shadows they bleed

render flesh; the bees
on her face like a bridal veil—
oh, he is lovely where he lies

beside the water. Oh,
she is blushing with stings.