Tag: women

Women by Ashley Kirkland

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment
Women
My friend and I are talking (we talk most mornings,
it’s one of those things that keeps us going) &
she’s telling me about her boss, how she makes her
feel like a small girl in trouble & yet her boss compares
women to the sun: constant, strong. My friend tells me she’s neither,
maybe she’s conflating women and mothers, she says, & I think
about the link between youth & shame, how the connection follows
us into adulthood, how even now I feel so small when I feel
shame. My friend says she’s more like a lake because she has boundaries
& depth. An ocean would be too big, she says. I don’t tell her,
but I think she could be an ocean if she wanted; a hurricane tearing
through the joint. I’m a poet so I think of the moon– bright & ever-
changing, guiding, pulling. She takes on all of the metaphors
then, and says, it’s funny, you know, that we have this urge to compare
women to part of nature when we are nature. She tells me about women
in the Bible, the word ezer, how the phrasing the first time it appears
is stronger than the male translators ever gave us credit for, which, I think,
is what we’ve always fought. Metaphors that underestimate us, make us
larger than life. Myth. The sun, the lake, the moon, when we’ve really
only ever been ourselves, which is to say, everything all at once.
*
Ashley Kirkland writes in Ohio where she lives with her husband and sons. Her work can be found in Cordella Press, Boats Against the Current, The Citron Review, Naugatuck River Review, HAD, Major7thMagazine, among others. Her chapbook, BRUISED MOTHER, is available from Boats Against the Current. She is a poetry editor for 3Elements Literary Review. You can find her at lashleykirkland.bsky.social and lashleykirklandwriter on Instagram.

Every Woman by E.C. Gannon

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Every Woman

I deserve to have someone paint a nude portrait
of me, I really do. I deserve to disrobe in someone’s
studio, to lie on a vintage couch with my tattooed
arm draped limply over my head. I deserve to have
someone study the contour of my neck, the lopsided
proportions of my tits, the right pushed upward
by the armrest, the extra cartilage beneath my ribs.
I deserve to have someone run their hand down
my torso to fully understand the way it rises until
the peak of my child-bearing hips. I deserve to have
someone objectively study the curls of my pubic hair,
the constellation of freckles on my inner thigh.
I deserve to have someone recognize the artistry
of this bare body, the nicks on my calves, the
bruises on my forearms, the muscle in my thighs.

*

E.C. Gannon’s work has appeared in Peatsmoke Journal, Assignment Magazine, SoFloPoJo, Olit, and elsewhere. A New England native, she holds a degree in creative writing and political science from Florida State University.