Self-Portrait

She was not a slender woman,

but her skin was milk

mixed in with strawberry jam

& between her legs the word purple was born

& her hair was the color of wheat & yellow butter.



Her eyes were dark as the North Atlantic sea.



She learned the untranslatable words of dawn.

She studied her own fear & wrote its verses.

She used the hole in her heart to play wind-music.

She built her book-houses over her empty cellar.



She nursed on the muse at first,

then became her own mother.