by Lisa Zaran
You could die for it- love, Or refuse it altogether and know nothing except the urgency of youth. Men have been solitary for ages carrying the stoniest of hearts in their broad chests while we women begin too early brush the brown leaves from our shoulders, go from bloom to fade as soon as we see the sunrise We let our eyes go first Then there is the limp lolling of our hearts from side to side the tongue we cut away the blind kiss on the backlash of night the giving giving giving of sin As women we blindly wish past the climax of passion as we vanish into a world of men whose ribcages we were scraped from Perhaps we are born of seeds our essence crawling up the stem to feed the bees Perhaps every flower you see is a woman and when she's in bloom and when she is blooming red and when her leaves are wingbeats of green in the autumn wind beating wings of green, yes even as the wind tries to humiliate her it fails because she's in love