Outlaw women

View back over the shoulder, crick
in the neck, suspicious of even
that three-legged dog in the road
teetering like a birthing chair.
Hand always at the gun, trigger for a
ghost in window glass. So hyper-
active, you can't keep your hands
to yourself while you sit in your
corner knitting your private angel. [13]

from 'What it is like to be an outlaw'

Messer, Sarah. Bandit Letters : Poems. Western Michigan University / New Issues, 2001. ISBN: 1930974086.

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we're driving through the desert
wondering if the water will hold out
the hallucinations turn to simple villages
the music on the radio comes clear—
neither Rosenkavalier nor Götterdämmerung
but a woman's voice singing old songs
with new words, with a quiet bass, a flute
plucked and fingered by women outside the law. [31]

from XIII of 'Twenty-one Love Poems' (1974-1976)

Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977. W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0393045021.