What I do not tell him
is that I’m happy
to be empty as a dried gourd

rather,
maybe I’m full
of brambles and brackish water.

Instead of Melusine sprung from a fountain,
I must have crawled out of the salted land of Carthage.

But I tell him,
in a crooked smile,
a shrug,
that I want to.

I say that because
I’m supposed to want it.

I say it because,
after all, isn’t every woman
dying to be split wide open?

-Michelle Benningfield