It so happens, I am tired of just being a woman.
My mind is fur-lined, a tangle
of hair, insects, whimpers, and asphalt.
It happens at least every other month,
this hunger for rebirth from mirrors, boots,
and glasses, and like a brazen aircraft
I descend into night air with arms spread.
Heat rises from a taxi that exhales
its passengers onto the street
then peels its tires as it speeds away.
I buy ice cream, watch sparrows
made from dust and rain
hop between branches.
A woman plays clarinet
on the sidewalk. I follow the sound
as it clambers down the street, looking
for a place to rest its jangly bones.
I am pulled by aches and the buzzing of mayflies.
The people in the street have paper hands
and brittle limbs. The rhythm of their soles
on concrete keeps my fever in meter.
I only wish to run until there is no more flesh
to strip, to stretch over the city, a knuckle
in the purple sky, a hand in the pulsing street.
All it would take is something small, an apple
or a feather, a sidelong glance from a dark-eyed boy,
to draw me back into myself.
Inside, someone who loves me will wait
until I am home to soften me with a glance,
will whisper into my collarbone, then place me,
tamed and oxidized, into bed.
