A poem

When I wrote of women in their dances, it was a mask,
Or their mountain, gold hunting, Spring, in orgy
It was a mask; when I wrote of the god,
Fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love gone down with song
It was myself split open, unable to speak, in exile from myself.

There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory
Of my torn life, split open in sleep, the rescued child
Beside me among the doctors, and a world
Of rescue from the great eyes.

No more masks! No more mythologies!

Now for the first time, the god lift his hand
The fragments join in me with their own music.

“The poem as a mask” ~ Muriel Rukeyser