the dusted pulse points...

Kathryn Stripling Byer

Vanity


Without hands
a woman would stand at her mirror
looking back only,
not touching, for how could she?
Eyelid.
Cheek.
Earlobe.
Nack-hollow.
The pulse points that wait to be dusted
with jasmine
or lavender.
The lips she rubs
rose with a forefinger.
She tends the image
she sees in her glass,
the cold replication
of woman,
the one
who dared eat
from her own hand
the fruit of self-knowledge.

*

Reading Byer these days. A poet of enormous depth and power.