The only woman in the world

Her skin glints

like unmined gold ore.

Her leafy eyebrows have not been tamed

nor has she bathed

in some luxurious milk.

Her eyes wander, dispassionately.

She wears about her waist

the dried skin of a polar bear,

she carries in her hands

sharp weapons of flint.

Her feast is laid out on olive branches:

roasted meat, roots, fruit.

She rises and walks away

to break down branches of trees

where no bird has built its nest:

the only woman in the world,

the first woman, bearing

no scar of an umbilical cord.

Innumerable men turned to stone,

wait, aeon upon aeon,

to be released from their curse

by the touch of her feet.