This skin this flesh this collection of limbs
Muscle here fat here hair here
I connect the disconnected
Pull together pieces dissected
Scars healing cuts closing these places
I can feel I am inside
I can feel I am whole
Almost whole
I touch all of me
Like a painter my hands
Stroking the belly the limbs the breasts
My face my hair my lips
And now when you feel me
You feel me all
This place once prison now vehicle of freedom
I am all me

August 2000

Imogene waits at the corner,
scraping gum off her new white shoes
pressing down the pleats on her pink dress
sipping fruit punch from a plastic champagne glass
waiting for her prince to come

(more…)

I say I think I hesitate
These places I have avoided are like coral
Crusted piling upon themselves
Did I choose the most difficult reef
Did it choose me enclose me imprison me
Inside the reef I avoid the sharks
Circling pausing hunting
They smell my open wounds
They taste me in little waves little currents
Eddies of me in red and pink and white white flesh
I wait still silently shrieking against my selected cage
As each horror swims by slowly closer then farther
Until the cage is the horror the pain the place I can no longer stay
I find strength building it slowly over years
I prepare evaluate study and then
GRAB THE FIRST GODDAMN SHARK BY THE MOUTH
CLIMB INSIDE AND LOOK AROUND AND TEAR MY WAY OUT
ALIVE I AM ALIVE AGAIN
BRING ON THE NEXT ONE

August 2000