Portrait of Woman with Wings in Oil
I speak in shapes of meaning
and I am just a woman
with half a life lived, or more.
Which anointed grass,
which sorcery of waters do I beseech
through this charcoal map of lines?
Am I not a marionette
lamenting her strings? This pull and tug
is a kind of déjà vu.
I have been here before
in another body, under another headless night.
Or perhaps
it is all the same night, the same night
tethering the tongues of my great-grandmothers
and their mothers.
That these shapes I make are tending
the kindle of battle.
That I am, in the act of speaking,
still speaking against,
is why we have not moved beyond
plague and pestilence, why we have not earned
the post dash of suffering.
It is why the permafrost is melting
and our defense is the movement of slugs.
What desolation of life will rise when the ice has melted?
What dance will entertain us before the burning?
What trick of light will mesmerize us first?
