To the City of Troy
It’s hip to have hips, now.
It’s hip to have hips,
Round and plump, wined, bent over,
Full-assed and beckoning fertility,
But without the look of childbearing,
And with the look of childrearing—
Waisted discomfort cinched by the clips,
Reshaped by tights and stockings,
Pulling where stretch marks stop writing, start feathering,
Caressing the creases and folds of sheriffed midriffs,
The thighs that save the blastulas
Of vastly deferential men
Stealthly snipping cannulas lying in the space between
Our hips.
It’s the concessions of / contention / conception / contraception / Contra Mundum / that makes my stomach feel stir-up stir-up / even when he rests my calves atop his shoulders / finds my eyes
and leans in / I can’t shake / The spectacle the speculum must get—
Front seats in the grandstand,
Blinkers down,
High men and not-too-up-high men,
Maidens,
Sheathed by fruited plains,
Clenching writs of wager;
The pride of this American Saddlebred
Neck-and-neck,
Careening around the curves,
Down the stretching straightaway,
Pinned and railed,
Half-cocked,
Bare legs spread,
Posting hard and sore tomorrow—
My heart with rapture thrills,
Bleeding at freedom’s pause and
Champing at the bit,
This unfinished sprint—
It starts / in those dreams behind shuttered eyes / re-s-training to open / time bottlenecked / lips locked / gaits latched / cuts unmade, sewn up, and ripped / honor lapsed and reconstructed / clamped then released / but—
O, the euphoria of unfastening!
The release,
the urgency,
the freedom
of unclasped brassieres
—at home, atop his comforter,
just behind your back—
The release,
the urgency,
the freedom
of the frigid hook of a wire hanger
—bent to caress your fecundity,
eyes pinned to high Heaven—
The release,
the urgency,
the freedom
of absolving yourself from the identities you cherish
—bookends that have anchored your life,
but constrain you to that one specific place—
The space between your hips.