Before paper became a rare commodity.

Before the need arose to go anywhere

to put on anything special

there was a longing in me that

would not be named. There was

a lion breaking free and a child

who kept caging him. By this

I don’t mean I was unhappy

especially since happiness

seemed difficult to define

only that I wanted something and

couldn’t be sure of its whereabouts

or how to capture it. Sidelined—

waiting for a better time. That’s

how the need developed. If I just

waited long enough, I too, even

in my shortest, most female form

would somehow, as they say, emerge.

Now I see that emergence carries

with its root multiple associations

with water—including from

the Latin mergere: to plunge—

and that it takes a needful wish

to plunge or burn through

whatever it is that keeps us

from being alive.