Woman Under Water
I grew up believing femalekind was made of something else, something foreign, something like soil and soap rubbed together into indefinable goo. Chalked into squares, they couldn’t hop or scotch out, lest they get branded liars. Eventually, it came out that they were so alien that scientific tests excluded them, as if it hadn’t occurred to technical marvels that extraterrestrials had any interest. These others ran wild in wooded glades, nymphs from the babbling spring with tangled hair above and below. They cut aerodynamic in marble figures high above on magnetic plinths. Very old men in long-tailed coats thought this up. Didn’t know female anatomy from vague oil splashes on secondhand canvas. I still find it flavors thought. When I taste it I try to spit it out first. A dark sheet hangs between the two kinds. Wisdom can be felt without the aid of sight, never more. She spends her days swimming beneath the waves to avoid the clutching fish. Some- times she surfaces to flag for help, but they say that drowning never looks like drowning, but like waving from afar, an invitation to drink.