A hungry woman is a frightening thing.                             
She feeds no one, she is looking for something to eat.
It seems that she’s hunting. Every morsel unshared             
looks enormous, bloody. It is her hunger,
peering like Cyclops’s eye    
smack in the center of her breast. Watch her drag home
a live lobster, a purse full of coins,
an address book, a ticket to Europe,
and this apple, to pierce with a knife.

An empty handed woman is a threatening thing.
If there is no hand in her hand
wind gushes out of her bosom as if from a ravine         
a strange, hot weather menace,
the bad breath of a dragon.                                                               
She is a house in the desert with its doors
ripped off the hinges,             
sand drifts freely through the rooms,
piles up on the kitchen counter, on the floors,
turns the bed into a dune.

A woman alone scatters throughout her house
empty cups
and cigarette butts, imprinted with lipstick marks.
There will always be those who will see                           
in the red arc etched with the seal of her lips
duplicated ten times over, evidence                   
of a secret neglect, the exposed edges of great need.                                                                                                             
Beware little girls, sitting among dolls
as if among open beaks, handing out the tea:  
don’t become like her.