She always occupied the steepest camber,
as if she recognised the danger
of making herself a stranger
to the ways and lives of men.
And women, too, for she had never sensed the strong urge
of flesh, that blood-surge
the others talked about, its mysteries divulged
in these moments when
there was time to speak, when fatigue
made them falter in their labours, when the beaks
of puffins had stilled and hands were no longer streaked
with feathers, blood.
She’d grow still then, a basalt pinnacle
that stood out beyond the others on that hill,
gazing on these women who imagined their arms filled
with children,
while she became inflexible,
unmoved by the flow and tangle
that seemed to make their lives
both fertile and fulfilled.