An Important Lesson I Taught My Brother

There is a quiet earth in my bed sheets.
Yet I am awake in pain. My morning
Is my afternoon. My blood has dried
On the nightgown in the shape of an apple.
What is woman?

My brother asked me. We were young, swimming.
I almost drowned once and felt I was breathing in
Terrific blue poison. Woman is an absence. No.
The place of origin. Why do you ask me? I’m angry.

Changing in the locker room. Our bodies are not the same.
His is stiff, cold, shapeless: a stick of potential.
Mine is at once alone and dangerous. What does
Le Jennifer mean by quiet earth? That which is
Everything -- so powerful that it need not speak.