Before my fingers had known the sensations
beneath the damp, secret garden flourishing
between my adolescent thighs, I fell in love
with Mother Nature.

Before I could understand what 
was being taken from me, something
changed as I grew up
in this New World.

When it was time for my baths with 
mama, I was now scolded.
My mossy garden floor falls to the bathtub
for the next twelve years.

When did woman become a hairless word?

My woman
transcends the boundaries of your modesty.

My woman
is not a proper noun in your Oxford dictionary.

My woman
is spat on and shushed at, my woman is

fetishized,

She is big and loud and angry
that her trees are being uprooted from her home.

She persists through eloquent rage– she
is a conservationist. Mother Nature teaches her:
resist.

Published 2017
Pierce College Student Literary Arts Magazine (SLAM) Volume 19
Recipient of the Darcher Poetry Award