Pygmalion's Statue

But what I'm not: the complexity
of a corner, flat vertigo. But what
I taste: my milk and heat stung

breasts. I have been given a ripe and long
fruit with its fine raised threads. I have
been given my own fluids thus,

thick yellow wine staining my nipples black; wide
cloth, rust skin; red
apple gums, teeth; cumin earth; floes

of hair; sprung brown insects
on my belly.
I distrust the form,

take it as the ocean spits white
poisoned dust and pulls its feet back.
The mind begins in stone. The mind

hides its thought like the spine
of a leaf. What I had
lived in the clarity of porcelain

bowls, the cracks of bone
cups--I have my teeth,
ground shells at night when

I imagine cold
clouds of dust coating my hands.
How could he, man of graphite

nails, man of hickory
anger, man whose touches are fallen
eyelashes--how could he make me.

I knew a faceless shape. I knew
thumbs and sharp fingers.
I knew adagio dance, tree,

horse muscle stomach, tight
watered lips, huge sinew. It is a wet
bearded air. I would agree to a sister,

betrayal, savior. I would agree to be
less unique in my full swell,
moon growth. I would find

comfort if her hands spread
through my body, pushed
under the folds.

I would take these hands in my mouth
and drink.

-- published in Lullwater Review, Emory University (Volume III, Number 3, Summer 1992)

Copyright Louise Robertson