The wardrobe is full of clothes.
All men’s clothes. Father, grandfather, great-grandfather and brothers, all
dead, or never returned, or lost in Russia.
It’s packed full. Because no one wears them anymore
There are too many.
And so one day, not too far away,
I will wake up at dawn
I will slip out of bed without them hearing me
Slowly, I’ll take off my nightgown
and my rag
and put on my jacket, trousers, shirt and beret
and walk up into the mountains
I’ll come down a woman and walk out the door a man
and I’ll only come back
when the blood
no longer flows on the hills.
And then I will stay there
Among rocks and snapdragons
Grazing sheep or counting stones
Because what else is there to do but
Stand still and listen to the sea?