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The Only Of Only Being Woman

I want to write the language of my sex
hear the crack of rope again
a childish squeak of crosses into desk.
I want the oranges and apples of my chest
to be those grown-up watermelons.
I want to feel the crack and split
the burrowing erotic trip between two thighs.
I want the moment when a raspberry splits my teeth
the naked juice cascading open lips.
I want the bulging sweet fecundity
of birth again
the unconditional taste of love that opened every pore
of earth
earth's sweet parlay of flowers
happy birth
that barefoot walk of motherhood.
I want to feel again those suckling lips
swimming sleepy in my milk
that gentle calm of dummy rocking on my hip.
I want a new un-written law
of 'woman' at the washing board
where stooped she dyed the sheets with blue
and hung them on the travelling hoist
or dropped them water cold
to copper hot.
I want to
talk about the nothingness of being
backyard bound
the claim that wife and house are one
take out the flack, the jokes, the puns
the only
of only being woman.

Helen Hagemann



>
>I'd like to return to this issue since I'm in need of elucidation.
>RE: Rich's comments about reading Dickinson and finding she
>was using a 'male voice' rather than a 'female voice' -- what
>are the definitions of these notions?  Is 'female voice' defined
>by content or style?  Or both?
>
>Can a male writer also write with a 'female voice'?  Is a poet
>like Gjertrud Schnackenberg considered to be writing with a
>'male voice'?
>
>Curious to know more . . .
>
>
>Andy
>
>
>
>
>

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