womanhood, a cycle; a poem

I. summer

he liked

to open

her.

all sweat and slick,

she swims

beneath him,

low tide.

rolling forth,

shrinking away,

again

and again.

greenish-white bone

dribbles forth

from her skin;

hearts rub

against hearts

and crack

open onto

white sheets.

a wall of

hot air

collides,

shatters,

falls;

fish, a line of

silver backs,

swim upstream.

II. fall

if winds were solids,

they would scatter

from her

chapped lips

like flakes of skin,

or cigarette ash,

or fairy dust.

she knows but

she does not know.

leaves jump and

fires burn in branches;

flowers succumb,

heads bent,

to the freeze and wind.

this is not the time

for new life.

she knows but

she does not know;

curved branches sag

beneath her heart,

bowed and fat with

too much flame.

she knows but

she does not know.

the burden of

gratuitous life.

III. winter

like the silver squirrels,

or the grey bears,

she grows bigger,

and fuller,

decides a world of

ice is little to live for,

and, shivering,

goes to sleep.

IV. spring

she

wishes she were

them.

they, whose fruit

will ripen and

fall,

white flowers

on white branches;

arms outstretched,

bowed with the color

of snow

and virginity.

so she is,

an empty vessel.

brownish flowers

blooming

from her flesh.

life fawns,

but it is

invisible;

all she can

see is the

summer. the

succor, the salt,

the blood.

the blank

reincarnation

of the past;

the

promise of an

inevitable return.