By Shape and Fortune

By shape and fortune 
she is a woman,
cheated of her waterfalls,
rivers and lakes.

I have seen her mirror,
bath, bruised fruit,
the wounded relic of her lips,
and know (as much as any man
can know his own dumb fist)
she strove for things
better than what is.

Some walk stations of the cross,
find god in naves and priests.
I wade crowded subway cars,
find women plump in pregnancy.
There, beneath the hurtling earth,
we sit knee, 
to knee, 
to knee, 
to knee.


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