i suppose most men believe they are special
in everyday life, walking about and pointing up at things
as if they had never seen it all before as if they had never seen it all
a thousand times over and over,
picking at the fruit on their plate or watching birds fly by
wishing they too were weightless in the sky.

but what of a woman? am i not weightless
when i swallow air or shave off all my hair? 
i may not captain a ship, but i swim in the sea
with scales on my legs and fangs in my mouth.
or must i only carry my grandfather’s sword and abandon my grandmother’s jewels
to feel that special feeling that most men feel in everyday life?

what more could one woman do? expect,
to fight for the ashes of her mother,
and her mother before her, and
her mother before her, to prove in the face of most men
that to wish is to dream, and i have no dream
but only to feel such greatness
in the front of harsh winter and scorching summers.