The poem below is NOT one I wrote. Tonight, I just want to share a poem I have adored since my first reading of it 20 (gasp!) years ago.

“The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish”

Unpod
the bag,
the seed.

slap
the flanks back.
Flatten

paps.
Make finny
scaled

and chill
the slack
and dimple

of the rump.
Pout
the mouth,

brow the eyes
and now
and now

eclipse
in these hips,
these loins

the moon,
the blood
flux.

It’s done.
I turn,
I flab upward

blub-lipped,
hipless
and I am

sexless,
shed
of ecstasy,

a pale
swimmer,
sequin-skinned,

pearling eggs
screamlessly
in seaweed.

It’s what
I set my heart on.
Yet

ruddering
and muscling
in the sunless tons

of new freedoms,
still
I feel

a chill pull,
a brightening ,
a light, a light,

and how
in my loomy cold,
my greens,

still
she moons
in me.

I hope you enjoyed. Blessings to you all.