Red Moon
I am Woman.
Cut me and I bleed.
But today I bleed for the moon...
red silk trails, weeping
fat, barren womb-scape
life breathing, but no new heart-beat.

Warm, heavy, wet, I feel it falling
from my spooned honey-comb.
It clumps and rolls and globulates
in bold, bright maroon,
crimson, rosy banners.

Hurricane of lashing needles.
The violence of it all.
But in this darkness, the sweet, guttural howl.

Woman! I am that!
You would be too, if you had a red vomiting mouth
between two stalks of freedom.
I wrap my arms around this belly, boldly frail,
splattering bits of self into a cloth
or a bowl or a bucket or the white shag carpet.

Wrapped in a towel, I run to my bedroom,
dripping tiny drops of cloudy rain.
Ducking down under the dangling hangers
I find the box... The Box!
Oh, I need to slip that in, under, between,
collect those iron-heavy lakes of me
that I was prepared to give away
to life, to yearning.

Heart-beat drummer! Marching off?
This full, milky month collapses inward.
The volcano erupts upon the sleeping town.
A spot of wailing emptiness for me to wash off.
Or, leave it, red, spreading! proud body warrior smear paint!

These are the days I remember what Woman feels like.
Woman! I hover in the hut.
I stomp through the grass, an upside down bottle.
Don't cut me.
That is my own jagged neck, my own glass
and I'm already bleeding.


I posted this elsewhere but i wanted it here as well.