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.

© Erica Mann Jong

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