WIDE-HIPPED WOMEN IN STUCCO
I am seeing wide-hipped women in the stucco in the ceiling.
See them take shape out of nothing—their bodies, their haunches,
their breasts, the dark cleavage where the plaster accumulates.
All the rest on my mind and they materialize up there in the
white of my room’s imagination—bending, reaching, bare
wisps and outlines—the shapes in my life now are wide.
I’ve lain here long enough and not cracked a magazine.
Ample flesh, perhaps ample thoughts this field where
the ample women work and move, this high vast sky.
—from Rattle #8, Winter 1997
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Elizabeth Degenhardt: “Los Angeles poet, playwright, swimmer, Flamenco dancer …”
