Susan Smith Nash
You’re here and I’ll ask you –
trees shivering, bark peeling itself in sheets
the wind tearing at my roots
while my hair
sows madness in my eyes –
I need you like I need the rain
and the plow – to cut my skin
so I bleed in furrows, weeping
mud and sap surging up
in spite of me, of you, of life
and other indefinable hungers –
will you let me?
will you?
tear my skin, my face, my heart –
whatever I’m calling scars
these days
masks, presumptuous identities
foisted upon me, upon you –
will you let me?
will you?
-- October 27, 2001