In the Women’s Locker Room

From the book Talking Underwater

Over the tops of the lockers, 
I hear a woman

talking, talking.
Just the trail of her sentences,

sentencing,
sentencing her listener

to the silence of a tree. 
While she, like an animal

nose to the ground, 
follows the trail

of her own words, her scent. 
Tense, she is on the prowl:

she is talking about 
her body, her body.

She can’t decide 
if she wants to be

fat with no wrinkles,
or skinny with wrinkles.

But for now, she says 
she just wants to keep

her muscles in tone:
her muscles intone to her:

“Be somebody;
Be some body.”

Next Poem

Ode to Autumn