The female of the phyla,
winged and swallowing
stone, prehistoric in method
of digestion, pummel
and friction, stripped
of independence
and talents, wondering

over a length of highway
between borders codified
on land and imagined
in oxygen, like a herd of girls
in high-heeled junior high
with hip huggers and bell bottoms,
tight as plastic wrap
on thighs during beauty pageants.

The population meant
for commodification, the flyway cleared
for a terminal descent, until
the Navy and astronauts get
too used to it. They stare and in response
to staring they spread,
show off all the quantifiable
units that may be entered
into the record books, proof
they are most virile
and productive;

and they wait, over the ribbon,
the reptilian system,
while women search
through the only deception
left to them, the weaving
and ripping of seams, dodging
of enemies, a swarm
of starlings so they might
roost unaccosted

as if notes for a harp
penned in the cool
of the just-evening.   

JANE ROSENBERG LAFORGE'S most recent collection of poems is "Daphne and Her Discontents" (Ravenna Press 2017) and her most recent prose project is a novel, "The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War" (Amberjack Publishing  2018).