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(from "33")

Sometimes the words are so close I am

more who I am when I'm down on paper

than anywhere else as if my life were

practising for the real me I become

unbuttoned from the anecdotal and

unnecessary and undressed down

to the figure of the poem, line by line,

the real text a child could understand.

Why do I get confused living it through?

Those of you, lost and yearning to be free,

who hear these words, take heart from me.

I once was in as many drafts as you.

But briefly, essentially, here I am...

Who touches this poem touches a woman.