What Women Are Made Of

There are many kinds of open. — Audre Lorde We are all ventricle, spine, lung, larynx, and gut. Clavicle and nape, what lies forked in an open palm; we are follicle and temple. We are ankle, arch, sole. Pore and rib, pelvis and root and tongue. We are wishbone and gland and molar and lobe. We are hippocampus and exposed nerve and cornea. Areola, pigment, melanin, and nails. Varicose. Cellulite. Divining rod. Sinew and tissue, saliva and silt. We are blood and salt, clay and aquifer. We are breath and flame and stratosphere. Palimpsest and bibelot and cloisonné fine lines. Marigold, hydrangea, and dimple. Nightlight, satellite, and stubble. We are pinnacle, plummet, dark circles, and dark matter. A constellation of freckles and specters and miracles and lashes. Both bent and erect, we are all give and give back. We are volta and girder. Make an incision in our nectary and Painted Ladies sail forth, riding the back of a warm wind, plumed with love and things like love. Crack us down to the marrow, and you may find us full of cicada husks and sand dollars and salted maple taffy weary of welding together our daydreams. All sweet tea, razor blades, carbon, and patchwork quilts of Good God! and Lord have mercy! Our hands remember how to turn the earth before we do. Our intestinal fortitude? Cumulonimbus streaked with saffron light. Our foundation? Not in our limbs or hips; this comes first as an amen, a hallelujah, a suckling, swaddled psalm sung at the cosmos’s breast. You want to know what women are made of? Open wide and find out.