Becoming Woman

                I

Today

as I kiss my son, and he blush

and we laugh joyfully,

I think of my own eighth year

when nobody kissed me

as a kid, yet

held me close,

drew me in to in-between spaces

and loved me

as a woman

              

                  II

The man I married asks me,

“Do you know?

How ugly you look when you hiss at your son?”

and he reminds,

“He is a man and you a woman,

so better arrest your anger.”

I am at once, jealous

of my son’s manhood at seven

and wonder, if

a woman in labor

is equally ugly

with her facial muscles rigid

choked throat and

shivering patience.

                 III

That day, after we made love

I opened my body to the winds

Sweat, saliva and semen

were tattooed over my skin,

taking forms of animal shaped constellations

and ushering in, the fate of the Medusa

I roam over the skies, and

roll around my bedroom floor

unwashed,

for an eternity.