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"Love Letters"

Linda Hussa

Wow!
was written in the dust
on the beside table.

The dawn and I blushed together
as your spurs
chinged
around the kitchen
as you started the fire.

I stretched full length
on the cool smoothness
of the sheets,

a kept woman
a woment longer.

Within an hour's time
we'll be ahorseback
in a long trot
to some distant blue mountain
hunting cows.

I'll carry your message
close
knowing there will come a day
I would give a year of my life
for that...
Wow!

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Linda Hussa is a writer and rancher near Cedarville, California, "just a stone's throw from Nevada." She has published three poetry collections and three books of non-fiction. The themes of her work are drawn from the isolated nature of ranching, her commitment to the health of rural communities.

Linda Hussa has received three national awards: the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum's Wrangler Award; the Spur Award, from Western Writers of America; and the Willa Cather Award from Women Writing the West. She also received the 1999 Nevada Writers' Silver Pen.

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