if you study
a woman.

if you cut
inside
and study
the contents
of her stomach,

you will see
nosebleeds
sisters
toenails
red polish
perfume
babies
worn cotton gowns
french cigarettes
fingertips
white sheets
berries

and the crumbs
of leftover, homemade
lemon-meringue pie.


if you slice into
her sticky soft abdomen
and crawl inside,

you will hear
wet walls,
drip lyric
bleed rain
drizzle tenderness
crumble towns
build worlds
roof silence
and shout

sometimes shout,

for forgiveness.

if you stretch
her maternal
sisterly
wifely
daughterly skin
and delicately pin
back the edges,

you will understand
why reason
holds the hand
of emotion,
and how tissue paper
fragility,
when folded right
when smoothed
when perfectly aligned
along the edge
of instinct,

can construct walls
tear them down,
demolish debris
and create one
indescribable
sunset
within a
womb.

if you study,
deep study,
a woman's
blue
brown
hazel
chocolate
green eyes
from the inside,

peel back her layers
and choose to
curl breathe sleep live die
tucked inside her belly,

you will discover
there is nowhere else
in the world

she'd rather have you be

than deep within
and moving

somewhere
just beneath
the skin.