Once
I was a narrow backed bird
My wings were thimbles 
Dipped in vermillion
And male birds
With fat heads and thin legs
Betraying insubstantiality
Bowed and pecked, scratched in dirt
Of ardor and the absurd
Inflation being the territory of youth
Puff up, and let loose, shallow breath
I stood, cased in thought
Whorls of sea, hissing in my ears
Watching the pantomime of suitors
Without impression beyond wishing
To reveal innermost truth
To tell them, I am not the amaretto heart
My legs may part but the secret requires a key
The covet you have, is not for me
But a flickering illusion
Born on gold wheat and full fat milk
Where shyly school children sit hip to hip
Attempting to swallow the future, spoonful by spoonful
Wondering
Will I grow tall and willowy? Attract the grazing male?
Or stay suet and solid, in the finery of my own chainmail?
Not shifting with the glare
Nor melting beneath reporate
Feet grounded and solid
Like a much weathered tree will gain, higher purchase
Had I known then
The value of solidity
I’d have filled my belly 
Stretching out like a catamaran
Ready to receive weight of water
Cupped once, twice, thrice
Until beneath us, all else sinks
A stone among stones, building
Fortress against cruel turn of attraction and other auctions
So easily sold for naught
I would have been a yellow woman
Christened by yoke
Feathered in shellac pose
Hardened in ocre sun
Yet able to rise like morning bread
To embrace the less savage road
Where love is not dependant upon
Rude strings of shiny beeds and fleeting sum
Nor the appraisal of one, unable to understand
The warm value of the feminine
And not that cast off coat, threadbare in her insulation
He will soon see right through his own
Penchant for the fantastical
She is weathered, moored in confidence, for her walk
He may never glance her way
Though when he says he saw
The sunset and it was beautiful
He may indeed, be describing
Her light