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"New Town"

By Carey Powers

Leaves push my body away.

And I feel spare with a crooked crow.

 

A pouch of breath opens the womb, the ember sky

And between lakes is a boy with a crow mask.

 

I drink rain; seedlings push the elephant’s sleeping rump.

The shadow of the elephant is sleeping on the train.

 

Clouds blow leaflets with their tusks of dusk.

A ridge, my hem, I double down, pull winter in.

 

I’m not on the train.

The train goes to a sunny, cloudy circus.

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About the Artist

Carey Powers is a poet and writing instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has been involved with the IAIA community for nine years as an undergraduate student, a graduate student, a Youth Outreach Fellow, a teaching assistant, and an instructor. In 2019, she received an MFA in Poetry from IAIA. Her MFA thesis explored metaphor as a teacher of empathy, relation, autonomy, and interconnection. She published a chapbook Breath Rift in 2021 and edited a full-length novel One People, One Heart, One Mind, One Prayer by Steven Chrisjohn. She is currently working on ink drawings and co-writing a film. Originally from California, she has lived in Santa Fe for 11 years.

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