The Unworshipped Woman

Nothing
beat her
break her down or reek so
the way she do
nothing got her unzipped mind
her flypaper memory
she a riverbed will be
for a dog’s millennium
she gone lost
to her un-borns she pale smoke
shadow in the distance
she a train whistle’s whistle
this unworshipped this woman
she come like salt lick she go down
like a drowning man hollering for one last last
her story hung like seaweed
she come in she go out
like unworshipped women supposed to
knees bloody
knuckles got somebody’s
jawbone jammed on
hair coiled with September twatterlight
corkscrewed so tight even owls won’t hoot
until she pass by them longing, on long legs
lips the color of peril
bittersweet folded round a hollow in her twisted back
But her one good eye it flash—

Lynne Thompson
“The Unworshipped Woman” is from Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007).