A Woman In Parts

All the parts of me are obvious, see:
I consist of a heart in a tight corseted sternum
pressed upward in constant female expansion;
the weighty dreams I hold to
lean into this caving posture.

Womanhood should be
an easy aspiration yet
it holds uncertain things as stones
stuck into mud hold such after it rains
(I know what is there already, that
             is the riddle) --

Its metallic taste rises in my mouth
to meet my every desire:
Crumb by crumb,
I see it fall from the air;
the empty air where love
hangs suspended, undefinable
as a gaping mouth.

It is an odyssey to reach such heights
but it feels like a descent,
its true nature a secret cave dweller
brooding among cobwebs
and ancient detritus.
But, it never ages,
         we know this,
and it lives here like a faint, tiny drum
being struck in persistent repetition --

O, how I want more than this
yet it snaps me back every time
to view these passive observations:
       I can't be cold even with
fully erect vertebrae stacked and straight
as able, unfettered hands sort keeps
from throwaways,
frugal and practical.

Letting go is a journey taken
in baby steps
(the calculations never quite fit
the final outcome).

The female persuasion is
transitory; a wavering blanket
in the wind resisting its moorings,
stuck to a thin, drifting fraying rope --
         see how she floats unsteadily
but sturdily unfolded and aloft;
this is fragility --

Yet it won't give in or can't;
it rides a swell of forced growth
like a flower blooming in the sun
is forced to.

       .....

#MargaretAtwood