In a world so full of muddled dichotomies and clumsy classifications,
Of spectrums and ranges and imprecise definitions,
Of moving targets and sliding scales,

What is a woman?

When your definition’s solid, sorted, and sold
Am I an archetype or anomaly in the sordid taxonomy?

Here are my chromosomes:
Two Xs to mark the swirling twirls of DNA
Properly paired to provide a guide for my curves.

Here is my body:
Ripe and rounded and ready for perusal
By those who find art in a classical form.
******* that are not perfect,
*** that waggles as I walk,
A waist that looks even better when I’m angry
(Hands on hips and arms akimbo).

Here is my ***:
Excited by the touches that evolution would predict.
I respond when kissed by stubbled lips,
When stroked by calloused hands,
When rocked beneath a man that biology would call
“The fittest.”
Our coupling is a pledge to survive.

Here is my womb:
A wonder of chemistry and medicine,
It has been occupied for defense against bearing fruit.
I have declared my selfishness to doctors,
To family,
To strangers.
I will not house another life
Because my own heart is sufficient.
I will not nurse another’s hunger
Because my appetites are wild.
I will not be a mother,
And you will not change my mind.

Here is my hysteria:
I cry sometimes when books are sad,
Or when commercials are touching,
Or when I’m angry,
Or hungry.
Or confused.
Or happy.
Or whatever.

Here is my meek and mild nature:
In the hand that covers an ornery smile.
In the hesitation before I swear.
In the blush of a lover surprised.
In the warmth that you must lose, not earn.

Whether I am a winning or a wanting woman
I am finished with apologies.
When all is counted/sorted/labeled

My tastes and brightest talents are as tame as I can bear.

Sit quietly

Observe the heartbeat
Breathe your good intentions to your edges
In solitude, create the means to connect
Prepare your body to be offered
Your thoughts to be mined
Know your peace as light for others

Eat gratefully

Savor the foundation of all experience: matter transformed
Acknowledge the wonder of your body as conduit of truth
A morsel, a bite as energy
   becomes lungs
   becomes breath
   becomes word sharing thought
   becomes the echo of all consciousness

Work mindfully

Honor all the moments and movements with your focus
Ask yourself: am I here now?
Soon your heart will learn to say
I am I am I am I am
Before you ask the question

Dance madly

Why nourish a body and not celebrate its strength?
Why harness stillness at the cost of motion?
Why build heat and breath and joy
Just to keep them for yourself?

Love deeply

Bodies and words won’t do justice to our oneness
But we cannot cease to attempt the expression

The first bed was small
We so golden in our unity
Bodies pressed together
Seam of heat that reached
The edges of our length
Heads on one pillow
Breathing into one another’s ears
As we created muscle memories

In the futon year we gave up sleep to other desires
Drank too much
Laughed naked in every room
Bought more pillows to soften the slats
Tossed and turned, navigating the lumps and wrinkles
Restless in our nights of stumbling ***
We moaned too loud
Ate sandwiches in bed
And slept so little

The king-size mattress we were given
When someone else was tired
From sleeping in the same-old-same ruts
We let these other lives roll us outward
Bought more pillows
Slept in the spaces of others’ love
(or lack thereof)
And reached longingly across the expanse
My hand on your shoulder
Your toes on my knee

After the wedding we climbed onto the bare display beds
Worried that our spooning would shock the other shoppers
Impatient, you reminded me:
“This is how we’ll really sleep.
Don’t you want to know it will work?”
And then I laughed
Thinking of the things we couldn’t try in the store
How the weight of you and me
Would carve nests to suit our needs
And we bought more pillows because we could

Tonight I came to bed late and tense
Fidgety and flailing to interrupt your calm
In the dark you pulled against my hip
Shuffled cats and blankets, legs and sheets
You went over, I rolled under
To test the novelty of your half of the bed
Sheets that smell of the first spring storm
Cats turning circles to settle again
This invitation to sink into your broad imprint
Is all I need to rest

So fragile and so fickle
Are the hearts that beat within:
Keep us walking,
Keep us warm,
Keep us up at night in fear.

Evolution built a ribby cage
And nervous flesh to bind it in,
Yet my loving, near-to-bursting heart
Isn’t safe
And can’t be kept
From pounding out these siren calls
In search of like-willed friends.

I am bound and joined to many men,
And women,
Girls and boys,
I am ******* in their highs and lows,
Their hopes and doubts and lusts,
Their demons and their damage, too,
All sing across these wires.

We orchestrate a symphony,
Vibrations thrum and twang,
A multitude of melodies
That rise from taut-strung care:

We sing the body infinite,
We ring the bells of heaven,
We chant forth ancient forces,
And serenade the stars.

But also,
Often,
Always,
Still…

Discordant notes strike clear

And my fragile, fickle, fine-tuned heart
Has small defense against the din.

I make room in my heart for other mothers’ children:
For young women who can’t yet see beyond their own insecurities,
For adolescent men who trip across the line between charming and churlish,
For students who are angry when they meet me,
For learners who have only known failure,
For special snowflakes who see their own importance clearly
But lack the words to understand their privilege,
For children who are cracked and bent by trauma
That’s been doled out by the world,
And for those whose drama is self-created,
Because being sixteen is a trial we must all endure.

I will love the impatient, the unruly,
the somnambulant and fragrant,
The artistic and awkward, the brilliant and bored,
The sensible and serious, the spoiled and the sad,
The self-righteous and the riotous,
The lazy and the learned, the kiss *** and the clown.

I study their faces to see when an eyebrow arches in contempt or confusion.
I listen, carefully, to what they are NOT saying about success.
I find a spark of brilliance in a sea of deficient-skills
And wear my cheeks out blowing on the embers,
Stoking the glow of competence that can
Burn. This. World. Down.

I hold my breath on weekends
Willing and waiting for these young men and women to
“Be safe and make good choices,”
And come back in one piece on Monday,
Because my concern is packed into the pockets
Of a hundred twenty backpacks,
And more than the homework and the essays,
I need my heart returned for class.