Before paper became a rare commodity.
Before the need arose to go anywhere
to put on anything special
there was a longing in me that
would not be named. There was
a lion breaking free and a child
who kept caging him. By this
I don’t mean I was unhappy
especially since happiness
seemed difficult to define
only that I wanted something and
couldn’t be sure of its whereabouts
or how to capture it. Sidelined—
waiting for a better time. That’s
how the need developed. If I just
waited long enough, I too, even
in my shortest, most female form
would somehow, as they say, emerge.
Now I see that emergence carries
with its root multiple associations
with water—including from
the Latin mergere: to plunge—
and that it takes a needful wish
to plunge or burn through
whatever it is that keeps us
from being alive.