The female form
In duet
Forming a perfect curvature
Without flaw

They are breath for breath
All is cost
And yet they swim in the sweat of equality
Hips and feet crossed
They are a mirror
Infinity played as hands are held

Woman
Painful and swollen
With the scar tissue borne of her body
Ancient runes swirled into architecture
Remembrance
Of an age
Where skinny legs are the only thing that held her up
Standing in a field of famine
Bruised with child
As her husband broke the ground open
A grave for her to shake in
Dancing to the song of decay
Elbows and knuckles rotting
As her mouth laughs at the irony of

Woman
Silk and sheer
Innocent
Lips betraying the white breath pouring out
She cradles her soul
Becoming herself daily
As she builds her tongue
From the bodies of her dead ancestors
And all the secrets of emotion swallow her pores shut
She is the wanting call of warm
Liquid sunlight weaving through the grass
Giving away her body
To the sounds between mountaintops
And the prickly rough feeling of goosebumps
Standing between shadow and sun
So proud to simply be

Woman

I breathe in the echo
Sprawled with questions
Wondering if fairy tales should be without princes
When the softness of towers
Looming together
Become flowers of stone
And twist into some strange bouquet

Are they too beautiful
I wonder
Will they break me

Dirty fingers grasp the pale
And white bends
The completed circle
An endless stretch of arms
Reaching from one utopia to another
Rightness pieced together from seedless parts
Engenderment scattered from this holy ground

And I can't imagine
Why I ever thought differently