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Self-Portrait

She was not a slender woman,
but her skin was milk
mixed in with strawberry jam
& between her legs the word purple was born
& her hair was the color of wheat & yellow butter.
 
Her eyes were dark as the North Atlantic sea.
 
She learned the untranslatable words of dawn.
She studied her own fear & wrote its verses.
She used the hole in her heart to play wind-music.
She built her book-houses over her empty cellar.
 
She nursed on the muse at first,
then became her own mother.
Other works by Erica Jong...



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