From now on, these are going to be pretty heavy.
These next couple.
I tried to sort of balance them, so you
wouldn't be just sort of breathless after them.
I don't mean that as a compliment to myself.
Some of them are horrible.
I mean that they have a lot of horror in them, which
is hard for people to take, I think.
This is called "Woman."
The adobe walls of the house clutched the noon heat
in tin fists.
And while bathing, I fan my breasts
and watch the nipples harden.
I pinch them, feeling nothing, but wanting to,
and shift my weight from left buttock
to right, while the water circling my waist tightens,
as if you had commanded it.
I stand up, spreading my legs apart,
ready to release the next ribbon of blood.
All right.
You want me now this way?
I haven't locked the door.
My swollen belly feels only its heaviness.
You would weigh less than the pain chipping away at my navel
with an ice pick of muscle.
I can carry you.
The blood, halved and thin, rolls down my legs,
cupping each foot in a red stirrup.
And I am riding that invisible horse, the same one my mother
rode.
It's hungry.
It has to be fed.
The last man couldn't, can you?