Selfish Woman

I am a selfish woman.

The kind who counts her losses on the bones of her own back.

Luxury has a subtraction to it, 

a bead sliding off the abacus of my spine, 

the one less thing I can claim was mine.

 

Will I ever be able to sing? 

The birds don't ask permission. 

With their song the morning fills. 

I am still standing at the window,

 hopeless and half-dressed in my own hesitation.

 

Was I right? Was I wrong? 

Can what I've done be forgiven.

The questions wear the same face. 

Forgiveness is a door I keep approaching without knocking.

 

But the people will sing. 

They always do, with or without me, 

and plenty is not made to be rationed, 

not meant to be swallowed from a nibble by a woman afraid of her own hunger.

Don't hesitate. Don't shrink the feast.

 

-Nevie Jay