You Can Keep

your diaphanous virgins
your horse and bull stories
your rites of spring
I can do
very well thank you
without swan
or unicorn.

Keep your
wishbone and your big
cigar your mighty Stetson and
your twelve-string
guitar I know
how to please my
self how to saddle
my own steed.

---

Born in Germany at the end of World War II, Eva-Maria Sher wrote poems as soon as she could spell. After emigrating to the United States at seventeen, she studied literature, taught elementary school, expressive arts, puppetry and bookmaking. She began writing poetry in the language of her adopted country at sixty. Now she lives on a farm on Whidbey Island, Washington, with her husband Ron, their two Leonberger dogs Minnie and Tasha, as a small herd of Cotswold sheep, and a black cat named Trouble.