At Seventy

I wrote this on my phone at 1:00 a.m. because envy was scratching at my door. Finally, my writing silenced it.

Aphrodite: Yeah, probably reading too many Greek myths….

On the screen at midnight I saw her face,
An enchanting face with deep eyes, brown eyes
A young mother’s face
A wife and lover’s face
A soulful face. 
A creator’s face, a subject of the painting's face.

A hit to my chest, 
a shrapnel of envy lodged in my heart.
My breath, a prisoner.
I was shamed by her fire, her beauty.
And all those days to fill.

I am seventy now. 
I was that woman once.
So many moons ago
So many new morning suns ago
And nighttime Venus stars ago
And lovers in the sheets ago
And babies on the breasts ago
And creating with that fire ago. 

Can I empty myself of myself?
Can I shed my own skin?
Can I turn from the Over-World that takes the measure of me,
That blesses me worthy if just right, if right enough, 
if young enough and shiny enough?

And turn toward the Other-World where I dance in a white dress 
With mothers and daughters and grandmothers and great-grandmothers 
and barefoot poets, ribbons wrapped around ankles and toes,  
and with Aphrodite, 
the most resplendent of all.
Where I am baptized with her tears
Because she knows 
she knows, she knows what it means to be a mortal woman 
even when she is not.
Where we marry our Selves.

Can I break the spell?
With every thought I signal either 
the Over-World or the Other-World.
With every swipe of the screen, 
the Over-world may caw like a crow, beaks pecking at flesh.
With every turning to the Other-world, 
I twirl in my white dress with Aphrodite and my sisters, 
even the one with the brown eyes and all those days to fill.
Because she has longings too. 
She longs to be me when she is seventy.

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