One of my favorite myths. From Demeter Faces Facts (second poem down)
Without even meaning to, she’s gone underground,
the face whose curve you shaped with your own hand,
fugitive, a sullen stranger’s you’ll never touch the same wayagain. Still, you keep brushing and braiding, separating
the strands and binding them together again, as if they werea rope by which you could hold her, tethering her to your body
as she was once anchored and fed, your blood hers. Beforeshe got big enough to cross the street without looking back
to catch your eye. When you were still everything she needed.
— Alison Townsend
The poems here don’t always inspire me with tight, bright language, but lately I’ve been inspired by writers whose work is less than perfect. Some deep inner critic, some just-sprouting bulb of defiance inside me says “if they can do it, why can’t I?”
Seeing a feminine moniker in the masthead also soothes the woman-shaped ire within.
Garden of Words 