No names

Tonight the moon still sets, women collect their gathering baskets, and somewhere, anywhere, she is still waiting. Waiting for his coat to alight on the back of the soft chair in the parlour, in a house that doesn't exist.

And he is every man. And she is every woman. Each story is the same. She comes to you now, as always, wearing a new masque, a new body, telling a new story. She has a thousand names. She whispers yours. You hold her in the wind and let her go.
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at the edge of the village in the dust of the dust, the women collect their gathering baskets. their skin is dark blue as the dark blue corn they grind on the stones speckled grey and white. she is young and learning, her hands still get numb, sore and bruised. still, she is proud to be doing the womens work, the washing, the hanging of the white linens. it will not be long before the newness turns to resentment, not long before the honor becomes a chore.

it will not be long before the days of her life, the honor of duty become a fence that traps her beauty and the color of her dreams begins to bleed into the drab dusty earth of every day living. she searches the distant horizon for the man on the horse, for the messenger from somewhere far away. for the one who might come and take her away. to where she does not know. somewhere far from the names that shackle her.

daughter, sister, mother.

she longs to go where she has no names.

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my first tantra teacher was a married man with children. i, too, was a married woman. we met in secret, in the old way, in the forbidden path. he said, leave your shoes outside the door. when you come in, you are only energy. you leave your life behind. when you leave, put back on your shoes. you are a wife and a mother again.

when i went home, i was surprised i could be so many people. i felt immortal. i had done the forbidden, and i was not dead. i felt more alive than ever.