i am not a woman
i am a force of nature
i am not thundercloud or a cloudwall
i am a burst of incoming fire
i am not a fire base
i am a tangle of himalayan blackberries
covering the headland
i am not a dark plot to disentangle
in the novel’s final chapter
i am the last task crossed off
the list on your night stand
i am not the constellation
of cygnus or the cruz del sur
i am the cry of geese migrating
by the wintry glow of cell towers
i am not the light of your life
i am the echo of generations
painted on cave walls
i am not the mirror or the lamp
i am the first gleam along
the continent’s serrated blade
i am not the exile’s transcontinental flight
i am the crystal chip swirling for years
into the blue-green torment of glacial melt
i am not the natural child of silence and slow time
i am the lost offspring of a tilting shelf,
a miscellany of obstreperous bells
i am not a whim of weather
or the vicissitudes of birth
i am a being straight and strong
i am not a force of nature
i am a woman