You swim up to me
pulled in by the tide
of my thighs
You are a minnow in the labyrinth
of breast and belly
round and round you fin
until you reach the lacuna
of my navel
the cleft of my entrance
the cave of generation
where you lie on your side
like a flounder
your one eye
a circle within a sphere
within an echo
of round
where your edges disolve
where the thing you fear most
the thing that is larger
holds you without holding
the way the firmament holds a star
as it wheels from east to west
from beginning to end
from end to beginning
a waltz of circles
where you forget
you ever owned feet
ever ran the race of man
ever hung upon a cross
high above the belly of Earth
What you remember
is the cave that came after
the vaulted ceiling
the curved walls
the loving dark
Photo by Julia Caesar on Unsplash
Katherine West
Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective and Southwest Word Fiesta. New Verse News nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.
