Everywhere
by Jean Graczewski


I unfold my hands and look at them:
The chapped and cracking map of my world.
I want to see if I'm in them,
If in these days when I give and give
And never take
I at least have some residue of me
In the wrinkled blueprints of my fingers.

I have to look in the mirror,
And my eyes tell me themselves:
I'm not the woman I want to be.
Not the solid woman who stood,
Naked and tanned in the front yard,
Five years old in coke bottle glasses.
I gave her away and got little in return.
Losing innocence didn't gain me womanhood.

I have a necklace lying limp on my chest,
From someone whose name I can't recall now.
My reflection wears it like some kind of trophy,
Reminding me that so many explorers have traveled my land,
Mapped me in their hands.
I'm crossing the face of this planet,
A piece of me in each ex-lover,
Passed in handshakes,
Left on seats with handled newspapers,
Crossing oceans on airplanes with foreign tongues.
I'm spread, thin, everywhere.






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