If You Think You Can Grasp Me,

I've Known Great Happiness In My Life Along With Great Darkness, And A Question That Has Repeatedly Entered My Poetry Has Been, How Do We Use The Direct Experience Of Happiness That May Be Given Us, Whether Of Love And Sexuality Or Creativity Or The Sense Of Connectedness With Other Beings, Human And Otherwise?

Women Have Always Been Seen As Waiting: Waited To Be Asked, Waiting For Our Menses, In Fear Lest They Do Or Do Not Come, Waiting For Men To Come Home From Wars, Or From Work, Waiting For Children To Grow Up, Or For The Birth Of A New Child, Or For Menopause.

A Decade Of Cutting Away Dead Flesh, Cauterizing Old Scars Ripped Open Over And Over And Still It Is Not Enough.

A President Cannot Meaningfully Honor Certain Token Artists While The People At Large Are So Dishonored.'”

Until We Know The Assumptions In Which We Are Drenched, We Cannot Know Ourselves.