don't sit like that.
She says. We are

to keep our knees together,
ask no energy from the earth,

we are to circle it:
small planets. Moons

in aprons. So. Legs angled
obliquely, we

orbit. A mother denies her daughters
a firm grip on the earth.

Satellites. Withdrawn. Unstable.
The gravity of this eludes her.

- Marlene Cookshaw

reprinted as poetry in transit with permission from New Canadian Poetry.