A Woman Doesn't Have Time

but I hope you have time to come hear me read!

First, the most pertinent news: I have a poetry reading coming up at the Chelsea Town Hall on Monday, November 4th, at 7 pm. This is very exciting for a few reasons: 1) I’ve never had a reading in my own town before, and 2) It will just be ME reading my poems! For a whole hour(ish)! I really hope to see you there!

Now here’s a poem I wrote recently, spoken and written out:

A Woman Doesn’t Have Time
	with thanks to Yehuda Amichai

A woman doesn’t have time in her life
to hold still as she holds someone.
She must hold them while gathering 
green beans, while revising a list, hold 
them as she leaks rain from the corners 
of her own eyes. A woman doesn’t have time 
to sit & eat lunch; a woman must also kill 
a fly, make a phone call, read a book, return 
something messed to the shape of a square. 
A woman can grow life while she sleeps; 
can fry & keep the yolks intact; can love 
someone even as he shatters her shells 
to dust. A woman is above even while below,
often found at ground level where a sprout 
in its seed hat stands jaunty and hopeful 
in the wet spring winds. While above 
in her head, a woman, below, straightens 
the beds, slices lunch bread, gets fed up 
then well-fed by the same beloveds. 
She doesn’t have time for the solid red 
meat of you, nor the gristle no one 
can tooth through, nor the sizzle you make 
when pushed up against heat, yet here you are, 
sliced open in front of her like summer’s 
first cucumber, and she crosses her ankles 
in her chair and makes time.

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I am less and less interested in the gender binary these days, yet this poem required the word “woman” due to all the baggage that the word brings along with it—I wanted all those associations in this poem, the weight of what is already attached to womanhood dragging its thready tendrils on either side.

The poem was also inspired by a poem by Yehuda Amicha, called “A Man Doesn’t Have Time In His Life.” Of course, forever but hopefully not for always, the word “man” has been used to refer to all of humanity, while the word “woman” has only been assumed to refer to a specific atticspace of world. I am not saying anything new here: I know this, you know this, yet still, the depth of this realization continues to grow as I get older.

Reading/Recently Read:

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado: Devastating, riveting, engrossing, beautiful, and worth it. I loved this heart-pounding book—I loved the short chapters, the pacing, the way it captured the brutality of “small” violences, and how it seamlessly weaves in facts about the history of queer domestic abuse and the movements that have sprung up to support those who have experienced it.

All Fours by Miranda July: AKA “The First Great Perimenopause Novel.” Read at least four full reviews of it beforehand, was convinced I would hate it, ended up really liking it! I was amused, I was surprised, I felt like Miranda explicated her brain’s inner workings really astutely and that her self-awareness and wisdom were more pronounced than I expected; plus it had a Happy Ending, which I was completely not expecting!

Woman of Interest by Tracy O’Neill: Always a thrill to read a book by someone I know!! I went to college with Tracy and read this memoir about meeting her birth mother for the first time alongside two other friends from college and it inspired a great conversation.

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly: Well this was fun! Takes place in Australia, the family is Romanian-Māori-Catalonian, everyone in it is queer, not a lot of big plot events occur but there are lots of enjoyable small events, developments, and interactions. I was charmed by the characters and the closeness of the family in this, and particularly loved this line in Rebecca’s Acknowledgments section: “This book is for hot autistic people, people from the city, people who have been mistaken for a different ethnicity, queer and trans people who are tired of being strong and just want to do jokes, tall girls, and haters.”

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos: I LOVED this one. It was so helpful for me to read it! Clarifying, affirming, wise, funny, honest, and useful. Sentences were underlined; revelations occurred. My sister and I both just read it and I can’t wait to talk with her about it.

Want by Lynn Steger Strong: This one made me feel acutely the small, everyday devastations associated with parenting, working full time, living in debt, being in relationships, maintaining old and new friendships, navigating parental relationships as an adult, having a marriage, having some semblance of a career: trying to do it all, all that’s expected of us, all that we expect of ourselves.

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xox,
Taylor