In a Letter to My Sister
I Describe Paradise

In Paradise,
I say,
I become a nun
or a Great Blue Heron
standing tall and alone,
no man in my bed
or in my field of vision
to distract me from seeing
to the center of a soul
who has lived enough times
to count.

In Paradise,
I say to my sister,
there are no geometry classes
where the basketball coach
taught us we didn’t count,
those of us with long braids
down our backs
and the shapes turn to panic
like the trip down a cylinder,
dark inside to the womb,
where someone declares us well,
or not.
Where some man decides when and how often
is enough,
like washing sheets and towels,
like polishing silver, washing the car,
like taking out the trash.

Finding Paradise,
I say to my sister in this letter,
takes desperate measures
for women like us
who must find our own Exodus
out of the endings of a journey
that make us wander in circles
with the words
“An Act of Faith”
in plain site of “Truth”
and freedom.
We must say goodbye to our chatty friend, Disappointment,
so that we may find our hero, Courage.

In Paradise,
I say to my sister again,
I become a Great Blue Heron
with my keen black eye on a flashy fish of pleasure
and wait patiently in my own expansive waters of time
and strike precisely at moonrise,
tip my head back and let joy enter often
taking cool midnight flight
to my solitary nest
satisfied at the knowledge of hunger
finally filled.