A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

My Life as a Woman

Releasing the Kraken 89 My Life as a Woman Tomás Q. Morín —Teiresias Before I lived this lady’s body I struck snakes coiled in the brush because I judged their entanglement dirty. My punishment came dimly. Bit by bit, I woke under the pasture of night to new fingers, new legs, and then finned. Flayed and popped I groped for an hour like the blind then stopped and slept under the black tree-line. Two showers came and still I slept. Later, I wept and even later still I found work twisting the sweaty melodies of men. Now, the sex is never the matter, as many think. Men shed their diffidence at the cool touch of my sheets. The fathers and husbands at my doorstep come to tug my braids, to snuggle their maws against my nape and puff, not hug. No, their false mugs are what annoy me most when, the house empty, I climb the hill to market and coy 90 A Face to Meet the Faces men whose faces I’ve seen contort and flush greet me with stiffness and blanche when I smile at their tots. I much prefer the crushing grins of wives just before the volley of sticks and stones because at least there is honesty in their lies. ...