IN THIS HOUSE, SHE IS AN AMERICAN SHE-RO​

​

You said god is a woman to reassure me.
We joked our heads off that the company where I work
is run by a SHE-EO.
They said the future is female.
Except we are there now and it’s an oligarch with a gold chain.
Our vaginas hurt his feelings.
In platform black loafers on eggshells around him we dance.
But he’s the kind of baby who says we're too fat and ugly and our dancing is gross.
Still, he asks a good question as he stares down at us,
what kind of life does a creature like me deserve?
The killer whale and her cub pass under my floating garbage island in resigned confusion.
I am queen of my mountain of reusable take out containers,
organic beans, empty lipstick tubes and rained on yard slogans
how this place could have been but never will be now.
Joni sang that was just a dream some of us had.
It’s enough to crush your heart.
I mean, isn’t it?
The liberties I took with the kingdom without knowing I was taking them.
The smoking trees, the warblers, the bodies of does on the road
and my child issuing forth into darkness.
The coyote who found her way into Nashville’s MCC
slouched against the bathroom wall
pensive and studying herself in the mirror,
What now? Which way?
and the woman who drove her back to Long Hunter in her police car.

*Lyric from California by Joni Mitchell