Native
—after Gwynn Murrill’s “Coyote III”

Desert dwelling parts
Made of Koa wood,
Fulvous hair
Splinted
By touch, carved by will
And
Tamed by heated tools
Caught, preserved
But wildly decayed compared
To her bronze sisters
She is
Gouged
To form
Hallows, rounds, sweeping curves
Fishtail cuts
Divots in her ear
Perked and waiting
With head sent right
Sanded
For the fluter
Finally,
Salted in
Bee’s wax
Unmoving, still
Yet formed to the habit
Of ambling in desert
Dwelling parts.

***

Sororal
—after Gwynn Murrill’s “Coyote III”

My sister is bronze
My sister is canvas
She is cut, carved, crafted
My sister
Burns
My sister has tools on her neck
My sister is sweet
She is brown, black, lacquered
My sister is mastered by bellows of smoke
My sister
My sister travels on plains of orange
My sister cries with my sisters
My sister, watch out because
My sister is vicious, brave, and carnivorous
My sister can run
My sister is sometimes not my sister
My sister, I love
My sister brought fire to humanity
My sister, she says she brought death
My sister is wrong

***

Chyna Parker is a current graduate student at CSU, Bakersfield. She hopes to use her degree in psychology and her passion for writing in her future career as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She has been published in Bakersfield’s local art magazine Project OH!, as well as Hinchas De Poesia and the poetry anthologies Writing the Drought and Writing Work.