Cement up to the neck <br />& my head packed <br />with unsaid words. <br />A gullet full of pebbles, <br />a mouth <br />of cast concrete- <br />I am stuck <br />in a lovelessness so thick, <br />it seems my natural element. <br />My mouth closes <br />on stones. <br /> <br />Hand frozen to my chin, <br />my back a question mark, <br />my heart soldered <br />to its arteries, <br />my feet planted <br />in grass that cannot grow, <br />The Thinker ponders <br />ten more years of this: <br />a woman <br />living the life <br />of a statue. <br /> <br />Break free! <br />Melt the metal <br />in love's cauldron, <br />open doors, eyes, heart, <br />those frozen ventricles, <br />those stuck tongues, <br />those stuttering dependencies. <br /> <br />When the statue walks, <br />will the world dissolve? <br />When she shakes her shoulders, <br />will the sky shrug <br />& skitter off in space? <br /> <br />Or will the clouds cluster <br />to cover her, <br />& the blue wind gather <br />at her shoulders <br />& the men streak by <br />like jet trails in the air, <br />utterly ephemeral?<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/statue-11/
