1
Beyond the old boathouse of Mendota Bay,
the women row.
The breast cancer survivor matches
the rhythm of a postpartum depressed mother.
The core connects to the calm water.
Euphoria of home.
2
The wise woman laughs at the mortal woman:
If you think eros can solve all your problems
you’re deluding yourself.
Using eros as your fuel is to propel a boat on fire
watch the straw woman light the first match
watch fire spread onto your skirt.
3
Forms of “Be”
is: essential qualities
est: accidental qualities
She is a sculler, a scholar.
She est, sometimes, submissive.
She ought to be submissive.
4
Old habits are old itches. They don’t go away, but one learns to scratch it less.
5
Idle talk.
Das Women.
Uproot.
Float.
Attach to.
6
What is authentic rebellion?
A woman running from a marriage to a cult.
Wittgenstein running from academics to the front line of the war.
7
Threshold is not this one gate you go through once. It’s a wall you hit every day, multiple times, and with a bloody head, hit again the next day, asserting yourself.
Threshold is a place of resistance, the handle of a rowing machine: the harder you pull, the harder it pushes back.
If threshold is liquid, you do not become part of the river, part of the stream, you do not adapt to the water. You resist.
Threshold is not an open field of sunflowers that you walk through in the sunshine. It’s the battlefield.
Because ultimately you’re fighting the very steel grids that make up your world. But in this assertion, you find that metal grids are not made of steel, but something breakable, like gold.
8
Two faithful companions:
Ambition and insomnia.
When difficulty comes, the two pull me through.
It’s now early morning
I am still waiting for you.
9
In the gut of a dirty shed, a gorgeous
ghost, who, for centuries, tricking women
by removing their wills
10
It has been 3 years since you left
I still think of you
when I think of the last
psychosis
How are you
now
