Fictional females

I’m not that woman
whose silence you praise
behind the cover of your book.
Who will wait for you,
late,
with a warm bed,
a static smile
and an amnesic morning.

I’m not that woman
who forgives
every slip of temper,
Who cradles
every slap you blow
and restraints
her voracious thirst.

I’m not that woman
who you imagine
with your Friday buddies
with your porno movies
with your laundered sheets.

No woman can be a woman,
that simply does not exist.

Another species

Why is our sense of beauty
So similar to that of bees
Naively absorbed into a deceiving triad
Of scent,
Sweetness
And symmetry.

Why do we call engineering
Inventing new ways
Of palliating desire.
Of heating fire,
Of melting water,
Calling wildness
A seasonal change in our garden.

We read history books
Of lush, primeval lands.
We watch from an opera box
The flow of streams
The rituals of birds
The intricate laws orienting ants.

We think of ourselves as passive observers,
We consider nature a stagnant pond
Whilst our boots sink deep into its muddy waters
Whilst our breath arises from its chancy storms.

Our change is not nature’s change
But within it
Our past is nature’s past.
One of an endless sequence of possibilities
That in the battle of life
Remained standing the last.