Femininity

it's not always a mini dress, it's

a pair of tear-proof, water-proof, tear-proof

pants, pulled to the snow, with red

on the ice below

Above, looms the rest of the climb

The cold does not care what I am

It wants to keep me frozen in place but

My lungs burn, my heart, my legs

pumping heat from my blood like weakness

This is just womanhood in the mountains.

Back in heaven

it is clean, pink polyester sheets

that feel like Egyptian cotton

when I am taken

higher than I could ever

climb on my own

That's just a woman's pleasure—many steps, many

mountains. Many days of beating heart and bleeding pain

and tears and tears and dashing, daring partners

dashed hopes/forgotten fears

You want femininity? take a mind and tell it

it's a good thing it's pretty and quiet

and diligent and on it and always

thinking of everybody but herself

Let her dream alone. Let her

sweep the dust from your home

instead of bringing more soil in with her

You want a real woman, watch her climb,

If she so trusts you with the other end of her rope

you can bet she'll haul you out of crevasse

and catastrophe. She knows you will catch her

Photo by Seth Bowen