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I am cleaning off my girl

wild_detail

I am cleaning off my girl I long to salvage what’s live in her


I wipe kohl gunk from the slits of her eyes

I pat at her glittery pout with a towel


My girl scowls at me and cries and cries

As I rinse the smoke from her hair


As I wash the blood from her cloven feet

bandage            put her in warm socks    satin slippers


I know she’ll take off

I know she’ll raid the liquor cabinet

Dunk her head in gore

For she is my marvel

My unnamable        thunder        my unbaptized        corrupt font


Wild nightshade inflames the first bed of spring
 

"Wild" artwork by Paula Barkmeier  

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Opal McCarthy

Opal McCarthy
Opal is a poet, teacher, and practitioner of Heartworks Lomi Lomi bodywork. She has served as a writing instructor, yoga instructor, beauty inducer, and healer in Minneapolis, Hawaii, and online. Opal's first collection of poetry, "Surge," a book of wild girls and fierce tenderness, is available from Tinderbox Editions. Opal is passionate about empowering women to speak their own true words in gorgeous voices—and especially bringing forth the wild, the un-pretty, the secrets, shadows, and splendor within. Learn more at Opal’s website.

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