Naked Lady

About to be homeless, boyfriend in jail, drugs not working, disillusioned Elizabeth Buckner abandons the fading San Francisco counterculture for a weekend at a Marin commune. Warnings flare during the visit and when she attempts to return to the city that night, the driver takes a different turn, a detour to a Hell’s Angels camp. Buckner unable to escape, is trapped as sacrifice in a brutal Hells Angels “ Red Wings” ritual.

In blameless, unflinching poetry, Buckner embarks upon two separate, yet intertwined journeys, that of the older woman looking back wide-eyed, and of the lost, younger woman groping forward.The former is a steadfast linear journey guided by the heart; the latter meanders and twists upon itself like a snake biting its own back.

The seeds of the Angel’s ritual take root in Buckner’s soul. Fertilized with shame and guilt, they grow for twenty years. When innocently asked to preview a rape video for work, the blood seeds begin to bloom.
Buckner lets them. Encouraging painful memories with bravery, compassion and wisdom, the seeds planted
deeply in the silent past, at last bear fruit, flowering into the graceful resilient “Naked Lady” of the present.
-Baxter Clare Trautman