Portrait of the author as a middle-aged woman
after Donna Vorreyer
Thirty-nine & feeling leopardine.
Feeling ochre. Gilded. Honeyed
& scaled. Summer sieves
through the windows & I am current.
Electric & river both. Feeling
ripped tide, coppercough, trans-
atlantic. I swallow each shore,
everything on them: me
& all my selves. My throat
an infinite mirror. Look! There is nothing
left behind; I carry all of it
a pearl under my tongue.
Kristina Percy