Day one

Oh dear. I know the phoenix has been overused everywhere for everything related to rebirth, but here I am, using it again. But I think we'll all survive 😉.

Art project by my youngest daughter.

Over at “Poetry Pals,”

Nelly Bryce

and

Stephanie Moore

joined up to share a prompt on writing desire. Stephanie wrote, “The ovulatory phase of our menstrual cycle (the release of the egg, the potential for new life) can be challenging as we get older, especially if we already have children, have a multitude of responsibilities and may also have the most energy at this time to do things for others so our own pleasure or direction of desire can become easily ignored or forgotten. We can burn out and end up resentful, disconnected from our intuition and what it is that feels good for our bodies and souls. Writing from the place I’m in within my cycle feels like a defiance, a commitment to bringing out what is real and what is hidden and this dedication to the regular connecting of the womb and the voice opens a truth I am now unable to unhear.”

The prompt: “And so I ask you to lean into what day you’re on (day 1 being the first day of your period and day 28+ being the end of your cycle before the next one begins. If you’re post-menopausal or for whatever reason do not ovulate, you may want to tune in to the lunar cycle and lean into the moon’s rhythms) and feel into what it is that’s asking you to listen. And then listen longer. What is it your body wants today? What is it you want when no one else is wanting from you? You may be surprised by what arises.”

---

I want to sleep. Sleep and sleep
with a heating pad, gray cat curled 
against my side as I nap in a dark room.
I want red wine and a dollop of oblivion.

Tonight, I’m still a human
and not a red river. 
Tomorrow, I will start hobbling
as if dotage happens all in one day
and by nightfall, I will be an old woman
bent in bed against the cramps that crash 
and burn my body into ash.

Day three will be the same. 
By day four, I will want to think 
there’s life beyond the bathroom stall
and Advil bottle, rattling red beans 
against white walls.

I want this to end, but I know the end of the end
will come with its own grief, passing
from womanhood that brings babies
to womanhood that has moved beyond them:
a new dimension, a different self, red bird rising
from a grave of glowing coal.