She wears my name and it’s a tug of war.
She’s as tough as they come…
I know this for sure.
She’s the guest I can’t ask to leave,
I can only tell her, “It’s all right. Stay.”,
even when we’re in a quarrel.
Even then, with tight chest, fists up and tears coming down,
I retreat to a far corner of our tiny home
hiding my face in my shaking hands.
And then I find out she is scared, just like me,
and not like me,
she doesn’t know about joy.
She doesn’t know about waking up
early to make pictures of friends harvesting
food from their fields at dawn,
or about the satisfaction
of sharing my pictures in a
paper that is delivered to every postal
box in our little town.
For her, there is only fear.
Only fear of being found out as a fraud.
Only fear of being caught out in the cold
with out a coat, locked out of her house
because I have found a new partner,
a new wife called joy.
Joy, who is a little more kind, who wraps me up in her arms and
with a big sloppy kiss, she says, “Go on.
You can do it. You are, in fact,
fabulous, and nobody does
being you
better than you can.”
“If the things you do bring you joy,” she says,
“than you can be sure
you are the woman for the job–
the best one
to get the thing
done.”
Rain pattered just a few drops
last night. Plants in their pots
still dry as bone this morning
even with a pattern of small
circles on the sand.
The sun was shining when I woke, groggy
from an early morning visit by the girl
called inspiration. I invited her to come
before shutting off the light
last night.
I never know with this wild woman–
I just never know when
she will show
me
up.
My body speaks... 