Ear

All day yesterday

I wanted to write a poem
about being an ear.

To be an ear,
like the great sea snail,
with its sticky brown foot!

(Not good if you’re Hamlet’s father, right?—
the poison that
into the portals of his ear did pour...)

I wasn’t sure how
to write it. The ear
has whorls,

whorls like the inaccessible interiors
of conch shells, in which you can hear
the sea—

its mighty roar—
That’s what being an ear
should be like, I think!

But the whorls of the ear
are like the petals
of a rose—

like one of Georgia O’Keefe’s—
her roses
are vaginas, right?—

presenting themselves as beautiful
pink pussies,
vulva and clitoris.

And, of course, you worry about the bees,
but all those bees
are sweet, fun girls—

those who want to trade
sticky warm
pollen with me.

To be an ear— 
a hum-bucket,
as it were.

. . .

I am my compost hole—
colorful pit in the yard,
engulfing everything I bring it.

I dug it this summer, feed it
every day, and, when no one’s looking,
I step into it barefoot.

My pussy-ear is amazingly strong,

because of everything it can do,
and everything it puts into me.