I was sick of being a woman,
sick of the pain,
the irrelevant detail of
my own concavity
useless hungering
and emptier whenever it
was filled,
and filled finally
by its own emptiness
seeking the garden of
solitude
instead of men.
The white bed
in the green garden-
I looked forward
to sleeping alone
the way some long
for a lover.
Even when you arrived,
I tried to beat you
away with my sadness,
my cynical seductions,
and my trick of
turning a slave
into a master.
And all because
you made
my fingertips ache
and my eyes cross
in passion
that did not know its own
name.
Bear, beast, lover
of the book of my body,
you turned my pages
and discovered
what was there
to be written
on the other side.
And now
I am blank
for you,
a tabula rasa
ready to be printed
with letters
in an undiscovered
language
by the great press
of our love.
