ciphers/sisters

the women in my life =
a wet web, shimmering—
               unsummarizable.

their messages:
grainy voicemails / emojied lists /
one-word texts / snail mail (still slimey)
humming beneath

a pond-surface plain—
but dive:
fish / algae /
eels—
a whole ecosystem fucking
in the stillness of a second.

one says:
“teaching summer PE”
[translation]
she wears the gay trope
like vintage jean jacket—
worn, wanting,
exactly hers &
her co-workers like it
('like' like liking a FB post)

another:
weight loss / shirt won’t fit—
nothing fits
anymore / new clothes?
—keep the old? how long?
and I’m brushing dust from vertebrae:
the bone-curve of her,
slipping
off the map
of who she's been.
the end = unknown.

a third:
condo listing / square footage / open house
she's selling it.....
I hear scissors snip:
thread cut.
gravity—optional.
maybe she floats past stars next month.

one sends a photo—
yes, a couch
(yes, perfect)
and in that Ikea angle, I see:
it’s about him
about how couch-shape / match
his absence.
home now = (her - him) + couch

another:
letter.
art again.
not for money.
not for clapping hands.
I read the ledger:
loss, subtracted.
herself, added.

and then me:
MBA class one.
then none.
my reply, plainspoken:
“I’m done with school."

but I trust them—
cartographers of the in between
my encrypted
~ notification ~
they’ll read
what I really sent:

a matching thread in their wet web—
pluck my meaning from the lake.
Sisters! Sisters!
I won't be
\\\weary\\\anymore\\\

women are a vast and wonderous thing.

The women in my life are a vast and wondrous thing—  

sending me the plainest of messages  

laced with the deepest codes,  

like the smooth surface of a pond  

teeming beneath with algae and eels,
and fish fucking.

One tells me she’ll teach Summer P.E.  

And like a detective dusting for prints,  

I read between the words: a lesbian so seen at work,  

she slips into the cliché like it was tailored for her.

Another texts about weight loss and clothes—  

but I, an archaeologist brushing bones,  

surmise her body is shifting fast.  

She doesn’t know how much or how long.

A third sends her condo listing.  

I, a coroner reading cause of death,  

see in the square footage and staged light  

that she's cutting every tether—  

might just float off the earth by May.

A friend sends a photo of “the perfect couch.”  

I, a WWII codebreaker with Enigma in hand,  

decipher her meaning: it fits perfectly—  

like a man once filled imperfectly, earlier this year.

Then a letter arrives, about making art again.  

The auditor in me reads her ledger lines:  

a woman no longer chasing approval or paychecks,  

but creating for herself. Finally.

Like a train conductor checking his pocket watch,  

I time my reply:  

“After one class, I’m quitting the MBA.”  

I trust these women will read what’s hidden  

in the simple words—  

the vast and wondrous thing  

I’ve sent in return.