In the Balance
this woman with sticks,
looped in a ring of wire
bundled into one load,
steps out of the desert.
bearing wood for one burning.
this pile will flicker away
part of the night in the
dry quick burn. this
snap
of desert kindling raised
on head and arms.
she moves as a man
on high wire, the pole
extending his arms
to hold the see-saw centre
sprung across his shoulders.
above the hushed ancestor crowd
who will her not to fall
off the dust-line into hunger,
she balances for a moment
her family in these branches.