what is this thing called Woman?

 I have spent time with women.
women who have made love with me for
weeks and months that stretched into years.
they have broken me and healed me,
only to break me again.

I have given my days and my nights and my heart to
women. they have taken all of these, and devoured them.
grabbed a bone, perhaps a rib, to use as a toothpick.

when I have crawled with a woman into
the tight, brief cocoon of orgasm,
when I have sucked upon various parts of her body,
and I have thrashed upon her tenderness
like a rabid, beheaded beast,
when she has kissed me and sucked me,
and I am exhausted and drained,

then she holds me,
and the arms I am held in are warm sometimes,
and sometimes they are cold.

still I squeeze her breasts to my face,
those breast being the only pillow that
I desire. I will rest there.
I will cry there.  and I will die there.

at times in my memory, there is one woman,
then two, then there are many women,
women laughing and dancing and tormenting.
and at times in my memory,
there are no women.  none at all.

if someone asks me, what is a woman?
I will say: I don’t know.
and I will never know.