March 2022 - Women's Day

Ode to all her shapes

For Women's Day

She rejects her reflection, tries to reverse the years
she swears out loud, the scales a source of self-hate and slander
she no longer fits the shape she feels caged in

her curves too round to her taste, her lips too thin
her breasts asymmetric, her chin too pointy, her belly a
floating tire resting on inexplicably broad hips

and the way she daily shares these judgments with thousands of others
the way she forgets to see herself through their eyes,
forgets to celebrate, to praise herself, and the way she fails

to tell herself: here I see a refined heavenly creature with
her own dreams and desires, a body that is able to
house a life, this is my body, where my thoughts and feelings reside

to which I’m entitled, my curves affirm my foundation,
they deeply root my soul and persona in something sublime, and if
such beauty can walk the earth, then surely there must be a God

Translated by Tia Nutters