Everyone in me is a bird.
Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife,
she survives all man has done.
The eye of a little god, four cornered.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
We wear the mask that grins and lies.
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike.
I hate them as I hate sex.
I weary for desires never guessed.
I wish I had a river that I could skate away on.
There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.
This is the beginning.
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
I am the master of my fate.
These hips are big hips,
they shake the mountains when they dance.
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.
We are, I am, you are.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre.
With lines (in order of appearance) by Anne Sexton, Sarojini Naidu, John Trudell, Sylvia Plath, Wallace Stevens, Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.H. Auden, Edna St, Vincent Millay, Louise Glück, Amy Lowell, Joni Mitchell, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Maya Angelou, William Ernest Henley, Lucille Clifton, E.E. Cummings, Jenny Joseph, Adrienne Rich, and W.B. Yeats
First published in Ginosko Literary Journal Issue 34 (see page 126) https://ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Ginosko-Literary-Journal-34.pdf