It is different in the city: "We . . . float along the current, ignorant as salmon the eagle has picked out." But make no mistake, she reminds herself, "The world is harsh." Don’t "pretend it cannot hurt you."

She spies a predator engaged in "true worship, prey seized, held high, reverence of reward," and compares this to grotesque semblances in the city, even in art. For instance, "It takes a certain denial of sexual function to call woman Liberty," she muses. Perhaps she will fly away one day, as she does in her dreams, her "breasts and ovaries the [only] handicaps that hold [her]."

Susan Elizabeth Howe, author of Stone Spirits: Poems, completed her Ph.D. in English and creative writing at the University of Denver. (She made up the middle name to distinguish herself from Susan Howe, the language poet.) Over the years she has studied with Dave Smith, Bin Ramke, Donald Revell, Mark Jarman, and Carolyn Kizer. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Southwest Review, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, and other journals, and she has worked as the editor of Exponent II, the managing editor of The Denver Quarterly, and the former poetry editor of Dialogue. She is a contributor to Where Nothing Is Long Ago: Memories of a Mormon Childhood. She describes herself as a Mormon feminist who is enthusiastic about Diet Pepsi, the landscape of Southern Utah, and the Sundance Film Festival. She currently lives in Utah Valley with her dog Griffin.