Floodplane 1 | Page 30

Naked Thoughts

by Kathryn Gessner

Nestling below my belly, a slice,

a scar where they lifted the baby out--

little lips of fat purse around it;

the baby is himself near grown

though I sometimes think I can still feel him kick

inside me,

inside the world that turns on its axis

for the womb that has not yet cradled life,

inside the dream of virgin timber,

undiscovered wilderness.

A woman like this can press her bare vagina

to rock in river and make a life’s fortune

off the body that becomes not hers,

a river goddess photograph, a nature artistic nude.

I can wrap my trim little self into this body

that is all mine, let all the mighty men surf toward her,

let them leave me here like a statue,

winged victory, from a time when cloth

was soothsayer

spinning all imagination.