the penis is something that fits into the vagina

so's the tampax or sponge

therefore Aristotle never thought of women at all

the penis like a tree fits into mouth, hands and asshole too

it can be the subject of an academic poem

disguised as a sloop, catapult or catamaran's mastpole

never the monthly menstruation will she

belie tradition's bloody demagoguery enough

to appear in the rough in a poem in a monthly

I dream I had a deep cut on my finger

filled with a delicious tofu cake

and when you took off your clothes your penis

was among them hanging by a cord on a hook

I took it down hoping its disassociation from being

would not thus prevent its manly erection from existing

and therefore I tried it out and it went well

such as license as mine perhaps made it swell independent

I think the world is all fucked up in many ways (see footnotes)

and one of these is the apparent interdiction in dumb poetic tradition

of speaking of and being heard on the glories of sublime menstruation



I first got my period when I was twelve the day my father died

at least I knew what it was, some girls didn't then

we were told you can't go swimming but don't you wanna have

	children

so much for confessionalism

I won't call on the moon like in a real poem

or anthropology or the bible or talk about being untouchable

or power etc. I've nothing at all to say but to exercise

my freedom to speak about everything



now that poems've got everything in them

even rhetoric and dailiness plus the names of things again

including flowers like the spotted touch-me-not

so inviting to hummingbirds

and I'm writing one

I'd like to mention or say blatantly

I got my period today

probably like nobody

certainly in the nineteenth century ever did

and if you really wanna know

most of us you know

all get ours on the same day no kidding

and we talk about it frequently and peripatetically

Alice with Peggy Peggy with Marion Marion with me me

	with Anne

Anne with Alice Peggy with me Grace with Peggy Marion with Grace



So Friends! Hold the bloody sponge up!

For all to see!