The Woman Prayer
Poetry inspired by a chant
My wrists are swords —
my mind — a theatre of war
guarded by a single
open mouthed lioness
I am the destroyer
walking midst deeply
generous red flames
I am violent waves
cutting through rigid
army of erupting mountains
My hair, flows through
nations — it has swallowed
many a charging elephants
trampling our naked world
I am here to tear heads
and bring down demons
with my bare hands
I am an epic boiling river
who has walked past many
drying deserts — here to
find water — my women
~rightly deserve
I am beyond words, reason,
any kind of compliance —
I am the power of all the
women who have lived
— their breath held —
their wrists forced in
bracelets made of drying
flowers — I am here to pull out
virulent trees from their roots
far beyond the hardened layers
of dormant soil. My anklet is
adorned with bones of…
