Gale Jackson

Nicaragua

When they said “you must choose” she chose the name
‘Oaks’ was baptized thus and photographed
in a picture subsequently sold as a stamp: over the text
“South American Indian, Atlantic Coast.”
But she had seen trees heavy with Indians hanged
so in the petticoats which were to replace skin
she went to bury her real name under the shade of one
grandfather arbor where memory is longer than man made time….