I’d say you didn’t find it as you, hoping,
flipped the pages of the Book of Women’s Curses
(while I hovered like those hospice nurses,
in a hush). I’d say you, fiercely hoping,
didn’t draw this blood when you’d concoct
the proofs that God is dark, that He coerces
tears. But now, I sense the brine my verses
seem; you hear a man, you hear me talk.
So say yourself – and are these fancy words –
You say yourself you see more, feel more, now.
So, please, don’t smooth your grimace like your skirt
as you present yourself — or try to firm
up tears with facile cheerfulness, somehow.
Just say yourself; does female wisdom hurt?