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& the ache starts when I see the heifer
plodding across tilled dirt, belly low & pregnant in the sunset’s handsome shadow. & she pants against the grass, ear tags swinging sublimely even in their punched-through vigor. & I go home & pull my eyelashes out in clumps, & look at my snarling reflection until my face is lost in blotchy red shadow. & how is it that furious animal feels easier than being a woman? & at 13 my mother tells me the color red is womanhood’s delicate mark but I thought red was for charging bulls & the angry pound of sweat. & I would rather trample the red flag in unseeing brawn than watch my reflection swirl The second that ‘want’ turns into ‘should,’
She becomes a withering flower, ripped from its damp soil, placed on a windowsill that only sees sunless grey, and dying limply in a dirty glass cup. |