Spirit World

Spirit World 

We, men, will never be enough--    

     

Yet all of the women deep 

     in the Gloom dream each other

          from toddler to crone, and they 

recount others' deaths whether from childbirth 

     or beating:-- Dressed in corsets or shifts 

          or shrouds, they bend away from us 

when we stare at them, when we ask them 

     to leave us alone: "We mourned you! We want 

          you to stop!" How much sorrow must we bear 

for our ancestors whose will was surmounted 

     by biology? It's not our fault that we lived 

          and you died. Death becomes us. All of us. 

"But, Little Worm," they say, "whose worm

     engendered death alongside life, 

         you believe you can escape

your fate? Do you think binding women to you

     will enable husbandry? As though men are

          beholden to none but their gods?"