The Women

The Women

Now the women will waft
upon islands in murmurs
of lilac scarves, all
wisdom and appetite.
They are coming
with puckered bellies, with
mushrooming thighs.
They are coming
in force, overtaken
by the thrust of their reveries.
They have all intents
of eating their fill, of filling
themselves at long last.

Now the women will stream
lavender tea in their hair.
The women will lay
heavy on hot talcum sand
and gorge on the will of the light.
The women will sleep
when it suits them, and wail
when they mourn, and remember
that which has rendered their flesh.


--Kristen McHenry