PROSE POETRY
LISA TRUDEAU
LADY CRUSOE'S MESSAGE
Days do not abide by number here, still time has its way. Debris settles. Debts collect expecting to be paid. Storms smite palms to penitence, breaking those that will not bend. The same winds usher in the solar reign. Debts must be paid. Hair wild and white reflected in the one pure pool this island hides like the Grail. My skin ripens. My face disappears. No man’s wife. Heaven rises every night. I urge my soul up through shattered stars, arms wide to God who lets me drop. Disappointment fades. I come to my own advice. I watch moonlit sand emerge new life, panicking toward sea, toward countless waiting maws, toward me, crouched and snatching babes to smash and eat. What anyone thinks I don’t care. My womb whistles like an empty conch. Place an ear to my crotch and you’ll hear the sea. All those years of clench and bleed I gave freely to the sand. Not caring. You’ll think I’m mad with loneliness and equatorial sun; rouse to a chivalry dulled by disgust. How many years you’ll reckon and sigh. Men well raised to please. Please.I am no victim. No man’s wife. I write to let you know that I am, at last, what I am. So if you find this do not come. I’m fucking fine.
Lisa Trudeau is a former publishing professional and independent bookseller. She lives in Massachusetts. Recent work has been published by or is forthcoming from Typehouse Literary Magazine, Cypress Press, and Connecticut River Review among others.