making love to myself
Martha Courtot

making love to myself
under this yellow quilt
in this big bed
has taken me
all the long afternoon

inside this cabin
in the Southern country
with the sky gray and mute
and the sound of the rain
loud
against the roof

i have explored myself
as another country
and come home

sinking into bones
into flesh
admirer of scars
anything out of the ordinary
i have come to know my body
as well as i know
my own mind

scars:
one: two white lines
across the wrist
a decade old
somebody else’s suicide
she was a sad gray girl
but i live and sing
in her veins

two: a white line
across a brown arm
an old burn?
a scab picked clean
too many times to heal
when i run my finger
across it
i can feel a flame rise
on the insides
of my bones

three: the scars of my belly
signs of my choice
motherhood three times
echoes across the white continent
which stretched alive
for three alive daughters

untraditionally, i love them
almost as much as i love my freckles
which burn themselves into my skin
in patches all over my body

my lips are sensual and open
my face, Indian, unstylish, and beautiful
my hands, strong and sure
they bring me the pleasure
of this country’s shores

this bed is a sea for my body’s journey
over and over again
through the longest rainy day
of the season

my body is a bird
hovering
just above the sand
and sea
it moves with the tide
out and in
wave after wave
bringing myself
home to myself

i come, and i come, and i come