The sweet of IS and AM and SHE and ME

Moments I would blaze,

would claim my second mouth

the first and only arbiter of speech,

word made flesh, world made peony,

pink, honey-thick, packed with the sweet

of IS and AM and SHE and ME, enough

to hold back the swirling sour of MUST

and SHOULD and HIM and HE.

Moments I would carve in bas-relief,

choose between two alabasters,

both easy to work and slightly soluble:

calcite, yielding to the knife, (copper

coin etching only when I needed),

or gypsum, unaffected by hydrochloric acid

but so soft that a fingernail could scratch it.

Moments I would sculpt my vagina flowering

from the patriarch’s mural I’d been etched in

as historical accident or design, (it hardly

mattered which), when I would believe

the sweet of IS and AM and SHE and ME

enough to hold back the swirling sour of MUST

and SHOULD and HIM and HE.

Moments I would hymn my vagina

as my own secret, safe succour temple,

an intricate, crimson curling carving,

not mere artefact, nearer to calcium,

close to bone, not vulnerable, not prone,

not the site of intimate carnal savagery,

but home to IS and AM and SHE and ME.

Moments I would know

the swirling sour of MUST and SHOULD

of HIM and HE actually only applied to me.

Moments I would know

he had another sacred place where

word made flesh, world made peony,

pink, honey-thick, was packed with the sweet

of an IS not AM and a SHE not ME.

Moments I would cave,

temple looted, alabaster oracle muted,

acid thrown into the mouth of desire,

vagina purloined by brutal truth,

peony shrunk to dust.

Moments I would wonder

whether the sweet of IS and AM

and SHE and ME is ever enough

to hold back the swirling sour of MUST

and SHOULD and HIM and HE.

 The sweet of IS and AM and SHE and ME was first published by Basilinda in April, 2024 at https://basilinda.com/publications/poetry/MKRpj5J2e77T1cgX5lwh