Annual Reflections In Depth Perspectives

scanner Art by Richard Lance Williams
This Issue: Health & Well-Being

Lady Poets
To Sylvia, Ann, Adrienne, and Erica

No one ever told me
Of the difference;
I listened to THEM,
The ones who spoke
Without blood in their words;
Rarefied, like uncursed oracles;
Undefiled,
Unlike what I knew;
Unlike what I am.
I listened.
But monthly I bled,
And sometimes
It became ink,
And I was ashamed
Of what came
And I was silent.
I wasn’t told
Of the difference,
Of the others who knew,
That the blood was good,
And that it was warm.