sermon
by Rachel McKibbens
Each time I see a woman
walking in a grocery store
or sitting on a bench
in a park or a funeral parlor,
I want very much
to taste the woman,
lick every blessed
inch of her from the
bottom of her calloused
heel to the top
of her glorious head.
If she is wearing an eye patch,
I want to lift its smooth
and sleeping lid,
whisper something sweet
beneath it, push my tongue
around its spoon-like edge.
If the woman is older,
I want to taste the history
carved into her flesh,
learn each translucent hair
of every fragile limb.
If she is missing a breast,
I want to taste the bright
and rugged scar of it,
press its ghost-soft nipple
against the bridge of my
mouth. If she is a mother,
I want to soothe her many hands,
trace each silver bolt of
childbirth etched along
her torso, taste the salted
hole of her, this sacred,
this blood hot church.
Rachel McKibbens is a Chicana poet and two-time New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow. She is the author of three books of poetry: Pink Elephant (Small Doggies) Into the Dark & Emptying Field (Small Doggies) and blud, forthcoming on Copper Canyon Press. In 2012, McKibbens founded The Pink Door Women’s Writing Retreat, an annual writing retreat in the US open exclusively to women of color.