Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken artery
and her mind were cut-glass
carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat
with great dangling black feathers
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances off the end of it
simply to prove her belief that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies
or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very
cool and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she's a fish, but they're all fools
She figured out that the only way to keep from being frozen
was to stay in motion, and long ago converted most of her flesh into liquid
Now when she smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline
and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you don't mind
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine
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