The
Slough
a
chapbook by Winona Baker
In
underpants mother made
from unbleached cotton flour sacks
I spent pre-school summers
playing by a prairie slough
. . .
Before going home
we ran naked into the slough
sloshed mud from ourselves
Anne finger-combed our hair
herded us to a home
that seemed happy then
Winona
Baker is a poet, wife, and mother of four children. She has won international
awards for haiku and tanka; her poems have been translated into French,
Croatian, German, Greek, Japanese, Romanian, and Yugoslavian and are
published in over 80 anthologies in North America, Europe, New Zealand,
and Japan. She has published five poetry books: Clouds Empty Themselves,
Not So Scarlet a Woman (Red Cedar Press, 1987), Beyond the
Lighthouse (Oolichan, 1992), Moss-Hung Trees (Reflections,
1992), and Even a Stone Breathes (Oolichan, 2000).
