And the Russian women in blue towns
are speaking.
The flower-dressed women of India,
women in orange tents,
dark women
of the Americas
who sit beside fires,
have studied the palms of their hands
and walk toward one another.
It’s time
to bless this ground.
Their hair is on fire
from the sun
and they walk narrow roads
toward one another.
Their pulses beat
against the neck’s thin skin.
They grow closer.
Let us be gentle
with the fiery creature furnaces
smelling of hay and rum,
gentle with the veils of skin
that bind us
to the world.
Let us hold fierce
the soft lives of our children,
the light is inside them
and they are burning
beds of scorched white sheets,
newspaper beds with words
wrapped against skin
the light burns through.
The women cross their hands
on their chests
and lie down to sleep a moment
along dust roads.
In the dark, Japanese women
light lanterns
the shape of children.
They blow gently
on the sides of hills,
the roads
illuminated by the bodies of children
that enter our eyes.
At night there are reflections on glass,
revelations of lucent skin
filled with muscle, lung,
nerve, that flash of dark and light skin,
shadows we love
that belong to us all.
Daughters, the women are speaking.
They arrive
over the wise distances
on perfect feet.
Daughters, I love you.