I’m becoming a woman of tonics and potions, and only
my cast-off Catholicism makes me feel guilty of it.
In any indigenous culture, I would have been a medicine woman,
a basket weaver of dreams and a voice to call the good spirits to work.
I smell of vinegar, and wear a necklace stuffed with rosemary.
In the kitchen, I am twelve-fingered; I read my stomach with my third eye.
Of my future man, I wonder how he smells — if he would mind any of my spells.
And if, for a moment each morning, he looks like a woman as I look like a man.
