As/Is







12.13.2006


The Hunters' Wife

A woman's chore
is to mend the clothes
and scrub them
clean; the men carve
the hunted beast

cleaving it
joist to joist.

A dress I make,
the world I sew
button to hem,
like eyelids,
like a perfect voice,
I sing

of splitting seams,
of removing pins.

Between the eyes
of mountains, the hips
of hills, the deer
move graciously then
disappear; the hunters' aim
loosened, torn

like stitches
I have pulled.