A water woman has no body
Emptiness is a blessing:
it can’t be owned if it doesn’t exist.
*
My father said to bloom but never fruit—
a small trickle
eating its way through stone.
*
I am one kind of alive:
I see everything the water sees.
I told you a turn was going to come
& turn the tower did.
What are the master’s tools
but a way to dismantle him.
*
Who will replace the blood of my mother in me—
a cold spring rising.
She told me a woman made of water
can never crack.
Of her defeat, she said
this is nothing.
Credit
Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Ciccarello. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 11, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“Lately I’ve found, and I’m probably not alone in this, that everything feels like a little battle. Since poetry is where I work out my concerns and fears, I’ve started placing what I see as everyday struggles—with family, history, finances, enforced hierarchies, the weight of the opinions of others, existing in a body—into a heightened, sometimes bordering on epic, framework. This poem is a small part of that undertaking.”
—Lisa Ciccarello
Author
Lisa Ciccarello
Lisa Ciccarello holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona. She is the author of At Night (Black Ocean Press, 2015) and four chapbooks. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Date Published
10/11/2017