Lady’s Slipper
If there were a creator
of the universe, and if she
were to begin again,
having deemed the first draft,
if not a failure,
then in need of serious revision—
after light cracked its shell
open against the sky,
water trickled
then cascaded
from every promontory,
air breezed over forest tops
and oceans—when she got down
to the minutiae—
and the architecture
of a new being
and new knowledge—
there would be many do-overs—
the apple’s reputation
resurrected apart from the snake—
and many successes to repeat
in nature, and above all,
she would know the Lady’s Slipper
to be among her most perfect designs
and from its pale pink
swelling sides,
as they curve inward
on their veined way
toward a secret center,
she would know it to be
the template
for that part
of a woman’s body
in which coexist her pleasure
and her pain.
Nadell Fishman’s MFA is so ancient it’s written on parchment. She taught writing, literature and women’s studies at Vermont College for 20 years. Read more.