Grant a Woman Her Fifties

Grant her the chance
to purse her lips
at soy milk in coffee
and religion in politics
and those who chase stray cats
and those who run the world
and those who run.

Grant her the chance to live
half in half out,
like a frog
on a shiver
of lotus leaf.

When she runs her hands
over the crumbly brown bark
of her body,
know
that she does not yearn
for green blood
and purple succulence.

She sees
the ease now
of burnt wood and gnarliness.
Sometimes, the beauty, even.

Grant a woman her fifties,

the chance to see
that young forests become old
and the old become sky
and the sky becomes pond
where frogs meet
to drink the shrapnel wound
of the moon.

Grant a woman her fifties
to unpurse her lips
and savour
where they meet —

the darkening,
the steady rampage of light.