her words pour out
as if her throat
were a broken artery
and her mind were cut glass,
carelessly halted.
you imagine her in a huge velvet hat
with great dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
sometimes she goes down to the dock
and dances off of it,
simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
when she is cruel, she is very, very cruel.
when she is kind
she is lavish.
fisherman think perhaps she's a fish,
but they're all fools.
she figured out
that the only way to keep from being frozen
was to stay in motion,
and long ago converted most of her flesh
into liquid.
now when she smells danger,
she spills herself all over,
like gasoline,
and lights it.
she leaves the taste of salt
and iron
under your tongue,
but you don't mind,
the common woman
is as common
as the reddest wine.
- judy grahn
