Eve, Sailing
When she wakes, beside her cupped palm
is a leaf, a green dory with ribs
a stem, a rudder. It’s rocking
in the soft morning wind.
Just beyond is a white feather,
a bit of down from a northern gannet
who crosses the ocean in just five days--
a white sail bellied, ready.
Eve closes her eyes and slippers her body
into this cupped, rocking space,
the closest she’ll ever come to a womb.
She holds the sides, presses
her face to the wind, and feels her body lift
across the water, that pull and tug
of boat, body, wind, desire.
If she doesn’t open her eyes,
she could sail all the way across Eden.
If she doesn’t open her eyes,
she could imagine a mother for herself,
imagine sailing between two warm thighs
and out into the light of a world
where she is not the only woman,
where she is not the only one
who doesn’t have the power to create.