culturalterrain.com > gallery > the skins series > regret > the woman was
the woman was

This is the middle of my life.
This is my report.

I am on an expedition.
I am working on my own.

I am a woman
looking for a woman.
This is what I've found:

the woman was an envelope
I unsealed her
I read her contents

the woman was paper
I drew on her

the woman was chalk
I wrote her name

the woman was a poem
I memorized her lines

the woman was potsherds
I fit her together

the woman was a net
I untangled her
I loosened the stones that were her weights

the woman was a map of skin
I read the dust within her folds.

the woman was a dry creek bed
I followed her

the woman was a message
I uncoded her

the woman was a line of wet sand leading to a well
I drank her

the woman was mist
I inhaled her

the woman was a memory
I marked her place

This is my first report.
I will write to you again.

 

 

Elizabeth Ingraham
eingraham2 [at] unl.edu 
More poems from A Woman Out of Time 

back to top