At Paris-Charles de Gaulle
Like a wildfire. It happens suddenly.
She ignites.
Ripped red from one end to the other.
In an instant, a single word—
the spark of a match,
the grating kiss of two small knobs in the palm.
Her mind, combustible.
Once she was a cool forest—pale green,
limp-leaved, too long dormant.
Brush built up. For years, lacking a controlled burn.
Now, only a spark—
a scornful look, le mot insultant
slipping from a pinched mouth
transforms her soft body
into a raging fire.
Imbécile. Conasse. Tu m’emmerde.
A girl, she would have blown over
with the slightest gale
crumbled, wept alone in the bathroom stall,
bled like Persephone’s crushed pomegranate seeds.
But the decades have hardened her.
Beware—Medusa’s snakes intertwine
in strands of graying hair.
A sweet, gentle thing no longer.
She is a full woman, despite herself.
Her body has borne children,
endured sleepless nights,
ached, labored,
a veteran of fierce battles:
with men, with pain, la douleur,
no stranger to life's cruelty
Where in the body does it originate? This fury.
Abruptly in the clenched throat, it appears,
in the tightness between shoulder blades
in the hot iron jaw
in a growl of pain in the lower back.
It lurches, breaks through skin, from the inside,
claws through openings of scars, old wounds,
shrieks with its gaping, gargoyle mouth
Although it holds the threaded hand of shame
anger is woven into her skin
embraced like a burning crumb of coal,
a hot little goddess
She possesses the sharp tongue
of a harried mother, no longer young.
No amount of praying, kneeling,
blessings of holy water
will dampen it.
She is a flammable woman.
Attention, mes amis:
If you bite her, she will bite back.
