My voice barbs. I shy from its pointed horns afraid to show myself stark-stripped. I listen in the shower, making the bed, in a yoga class, cooking dinner, in the dentist’s chair, in my belly in the unearthed archaeology of the unspoken. I spent last evening with all the versions of myself. How cocktail choices […]

Bring me the gift of loss— baby teeth, big girl teeth this dead old molar, done   chewing down years, rootless, separated from the body surrendered to silk-sack departures—   mother, father, lovers, husbands, friends this house, that job, the accumulations and cost of having.   Teach me to put youth, beauty fire, fury, gutting […]