Free Moon Is Always Female by Marge Piercy

battle
    for other women, myself included,
    because I can not give you anything
    you want? I can not midwife you free.
    In my childhood bed we float, your sweet
    husky voice singing about the crescent
    moon, with two horns sharp and bright we would
    climb into like a boat and row away
    and see, you sang, where the pretty moon goes.
    In the land where the moon hides, mothers
    and daughters hold each other tenderly.
    There is no male law at five o’clock.
    Our sameness and our difference do not clash
    metal on metal but we celebrate and learn.
    My muse, your voice on the phone wavers with tears.
    The life you gave me burns its acetylene
    of buried anger, unused talents, rotted wishes,
    the compost of discontent, flaring into words
    strong for other women under your waning moon.

     O!
    Oh, the golden bauble of your rising
    wet from the waves rippling,
    radiating like orgasm, round
    as a singing mouth at full stretch,
    round as the vagina when it takes,
    round as a full belly, round
    as a baby’s head, you come to us
    riding over the white manes
    of the waves, walking on their backs
    like a circus rider. Hoop
    of cool fire, goose egg,
    silver mirror in which we see
    ourselves dimly but truly reflected,
    our blood is salty water
    you tug at, drawing us.
    Red onion, I peel you layer
    by layer and weep. The nights
    carve you and then you swell
    again, lady of the wild animals
    whose homes are paved and poisoned,
    lady of the furry mammals at teat
    and the shimmering fish whose sides
    echo you, of those who hunt for roots
    and berries, hunt for the island
    in the sea where love rules and women
    are free to wax and wane and wander
    in the sweet strict seasons
    of our desires and needs.