2001/women

I understand
my life
in the poems
that women
write.
Celebrating.
Mourning.
Remembering.
Flower gardens
tended.
Long hair braided,
or as they used
to say, plaited.
A word I never
hear any more.

Out here in this
other world,
I am confused
and don’t know what
to make of
this life I’ve
let slip through
my fingers,
like stitches
my hands
never took too.
It provokes me
to words like
re-framing,
which really
means trying
to justify.
In poems
I can simply
let it be,
sit back
and taste it.

11/3/01