Val, thanks so much for your letter. I’m still writing, but not much in public.

A couple of weeks ago I was doing laundry and I misheard a song lyric as “Made of you but not enough for you” which instantly called to mind the concept of woman being made from a rib of man. I imagined being made of some else’s rib, and still not being enough for them. And I got furious, and then a poem fell out.

I AM NOT YOUR RIB.

I am winter:
blinding brightness and
stark
shocking
unexpected beauty

I am spring:
exploding with life
blooming brightly
unashamed

I am summer:
luscious
peach and purple
splaying sensuously across
the backs of mountains

I am autumn:
ten thousand tiny fires
burning across the
forest floor