Advice from a Siren | Shari Caplan

A Metaphor a Girl Can BeGirl can be white stones warningturn back: his want will eat you upin the darkness of your room.In your grief his thumb, his thumb in your grief.Am I a girl red as lies, lovingnothing better than to claw a shoulder?I slather my voice in juice, see how it dripsinto men’s hands and men’s hands? Girl can be all cherry or too much pit,so I’ve been told.My sister is a girl a glass mountain.TOPPLE ME her sign reads.Mark blue splotches up the spine, conqueror.Girl can be lost in the fault of her own meadow.We read her Snow White, Cinder-Soot, college parties.His lock in your car, you’re locked in, his.Am I a girl a caught swanalive only when alone - when the feathersof my consciousness belong to myself.Girls have keys on foreheadsgreedy greedy men can see.A girl can be a metaphor for.The reed the receptaclehears the world blowing through it,the world blowing through it,never its own singing.