On Women at War

On Women at War

The tender guillotine is what will give me life,
It will free me from these veins, these nerves
These vessels of constraint, these arteries of suffocation
Fingerprints touch time, but why do you pull back?
Is it the fire? Is it the silence?
Is it the vice of every man, as am I?
You are the fire to be extinguished, it sneers
I am a first sip of blood,
a concentrated freedom,
A river that runs on.