For Women

I rise up singing from your belly,
like some glad keeper of the palace swans
content to serve your navel
as an acolyte would serve his unseen god
and take your perspiration as communion.

Rolling now together in our bedroom world
We’ll map out elbows and each other’s backs.
There are some parts of you
that have no highways.
Hairy forests cover even well-worn paths
but every forest has its own surprises
and the hiker coming through the glade
can only marvel as Columbus would
at sailing past the old world’s edge.

Rod McKuen.

For women everywhere.