After The Gossips, Camille Claudel

In a warm, wet walled, room
lightness comes
in with steam.

My belly
round,

back
curved,

two triangle breasts
point to my hips.

Flanked by two women
we lean in for
breath rolling off our

friend’s lips. Outside her story
doesn’t exist.
In here we moan truth.

The story is part of the walls
letting in a little light. Our shadows
are all welcome, unsurprising.

My thighs dimple, lower back’s
crevice drips between my crack. I lean
ear forward, bump into
my friend’s sticky, soft shoulder.

She is also leaning. We are allowing
ourselves to be swallowed into
mounds of our naked flesh and stone
walls. My arm is stuck softly

to my breast. My thighs drip
shoulders follow her wordy thread.

A woman walking past the room
chatters in a man’s firm ear
look at them

gossip. She forgot
to be soft or she never
knew how. The gossip isn’t

in our flesh. What we have
gathered sweetly here, is a
precious finite faith.