The Left Handed Woman

The left-handed woman
makes love to a right handed man.

Another man, more ambidextrous
than the first, steps forward.
He says, I can offer you more!
And he does — for a while.

But eventually, the woman grows tired of the men
entirely, and while they sleep,
cuts off all four of their hands.

What can you offer me now, she asks?

When no reply is forthcoming,
she goes to the beach and swims alone —
content to simply kick, her arms resting at her sides.

Look, she says to them, coming up out of the tide
to where they sit wailing on the sand.
Immersion, progression, emergence.
It can be done.

And I don’t need you to do it.