I am reminded again: I envy women.
I watch when they go so readily
behind the mind's eye
to where consciousness sleeps and wakes,
and down to the throat
where human suffering constricts the breath.

They go so readily there, the women,
to the wounds and danger,
their tears an alchemy
in which the rage that turns on itself
and eats the soul
is given over to grief, a new alloy.

On a man's tongue, this grief is new,
for he is late, newly arrived
to face the mother and hear the music,
to find what lies between an impulse and a thought.