Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,
—Anne Sexton
When I flew past, giants
turned to watch me,
air transformed my skin
to the shape of wind—
my feet were nob-less,
my chin, cameo ivory,
no score from lip to nostril,
no rumples on the flat
sheet of my cheek.
Hips and femurs, dense
as a bison’s, took me down
to the warm silt
of Canyon de Chelly,
tramped twenty miles up
wildflower trails at Wishon.
My brain tore shapes
from the walls of cliffs—
glyphed deer from the Holocene
the rust-blown shapes of hands.
Oh, my body sweltered,
with every kind of female heat.
Night seeped into morning—
disco balls, ten-speed careening
through traffic, catcalls as common
as chanticleers on the Ponderosa.
Once I had hair,
Medusa-wild, butt-length.
I thought its feathery glaze
would save me.
