To women who have never known Amazonia
Dear endangered curves,
Dear blossoming then sagging breasts,
Dear shoulders in wait,
Dear curious vulva,
Dear fairy tale princesses and your witches,
There is a landscape not impossible
for freedom of women.
Trees of proud limbs,
where leaves whisper poems to sky.
Earth savory, fingers to lips.
Its scent in rain
like the imagination of clouds,
fog over trails of fern and animal,
brisk air in nostrils, inside cheeks
like the creation of taste buds,
in lungs, stomach, and toes.
An interpretation of paradise,
this place holds always
the possibility of disappearing,
Weeks, months, lifetimes
of us working beside each other,
sharing space under day and moon.
It took time for us to get here,
and it first meant leaving
those places where we start out
at the bottom, to create a world
where women are the hive
and also the bees.
Where, you might ask, is a place like that?
Where women are valued for who they are,
not for what they can give?
Not for babies we can birth,
or how we can serve you,
or for the stars between our thighs,
and not for our lullabies.
There is only one place I know.
I would tell you to come
if I thought it was safe. If I thought
I could spell out clear instructions
on how to arrive, if I thought you
would easily arrive alive, I would tell you.
Dear doubter,
Dear captive woman,
Dear woman lost to patriarchy,
Dear body in danger,
Dear self, seeking safety,
Dear traveler,
Dear imagination,
Dear world changer,
If you want to come and can make it here,
this is your invitation.
With love,
Liza Wolff-Francis is a literary artist with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Her writing has appeared in Steam Ticket, eMerge, Minute Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Edge, and on various blogs. She has a poetry chapbook out called ‘Language of Crossing’ (2015, Swimming With Elephants Press).
“Like”, “Share”, and comment on this poem to nominate it for the Annual Swimming with Elephants Publications 2020 Anthology.
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