don't sit like that.
She says. We are
to keep our knees together,
ask no energy from the earth,
we are to circle it:
small planets. Moons
in aprons. So. Legs angled
obliquely, we
orbit. A mother denies her daughters
a firm grip on the earth.
Satellites. Withdrawn. Unstable.
The gravity of this eludes her.
- Marlene Cookshaw
reprinted as poetry in transit with permission from New Canadian Poetry.