Dear Colette, <br />I want to write to you <br />about being a woman <br />for that is what you write to me. <br /> <br />I want to tell you how your face <br />enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . <br />hangs above my desk <br />like my own muse. <br /> <br />I want to tell you how your hands <br />reach out from your books <br />& seize my heart. <br /> <br />I want to tell you how your hair <br />electrifies my thoughts <br />like my own halo. <br /> <br />I want to tell you how your eyes <br />penetrate my fear <br />& make it melt. <br /> <br />I want to tell you <br />simply that I love you-- <br />though you are "dead" <br />& I am still "alive." <br /> <br />Suicides & spinsters-- <br />all our kind! <br /> <br />Even decorous Jane Austen <br />never marrying, <br />& Sappho leaping, <br />& Sylvia in the oven, <br />& Anna Wickham, Tsvetaeva, Sara Teasdale, <br />& pale Virginia floating like Ophelia, <br />& Emily alone, alone, alone. . . . <br /> <br />But you endure & marry, <br />go on writing, <br />lose a husband, gain a husband, <br />go on writing, <br />sing & tap dance <br />& you go on writing, <br />have a child & still <br />you go on writing, <br />love a woman, love a man <br />& go on writing. <br />You endure your writing <br />& your life. <br /> <br />Dear Colette, <br />I only want to thank you: <br /> <br />for your eyes ringed <br />with bluest paint like bruises, <br />for your hair gathering sparks <br />like brush fire, <br />for your hands which never willingly <br />let go, <br />for your years, your child, your lovers, <br />all your books. . . . <br /> <br />Dear Colette, <br />you hold me <br />to this life.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dear-colette/
