rising action

the shape of woman

is muslin shadow

when woman smiles

light seeps through cracks in her teeth

a pink dawn opens between her eyes

the ocean 

the locus of memory

woman is the bleeding edge of silk scroll

woman is the ghost image of decaying film

woman is the smell of underpass swamp

woman is the first cut

not ash of ancestor

not hue of last night’s fire

not chill of bygone twilight

not bed of hollow wound

still i pause to pray

god

ancestor

mother

language

pink scarf

tongue.

the story i tell 

a matriarchy that bends   

the woman

to come

title: the chase, the call,  

why the tongue never rings back

exterior. night.

woman enters, and no one looks