national poetry month, day 28

This project wouldn't be complete for me without Sharon Olds. I own every book of poetry she's written. I've read them over and over, sometimes looking for favorites, sometimes looking for something fierce to hold on to; once I read them chronologically. She builds her poems out of her own body, and she never flinches. She's absolutely fearless. I want to hold her words in my teeth. This is an earlier one, from Satan Says:


Late


The mist is blowing across the yard
like smoke from a battle.
I am so tired of the women doing dishes
and how smart the men are, and how I want to
bite their mouths and feel their hard cocks against me.


The mist moves, over the bushes
bright with poison ivy and black
berries like stones. I am tired of the children,
I am tired of the laundry, I want to be great.


The fog pours across the underbrush in silence.
We are sealed in. The only way out is through
fire, and I do not want a single
hair of a single head singed.


 - Sharon Olds