Free Union

Whose waist is the waist of an otter caught in the teeth of a tiger
Whose teeth leave prints like the tracks of white mice over snow
Whose tongue is made out of amber and polished glass
Whose eyebrows are nests of swallows
Whose fingers are fresh cut hay
That are hedges of privet and nesting places for sea snails
My wife whose calves are sweet with the sap of elders
My wife whose breasts are haunted by the ghosts of dew-moistened roses
Whose belly is a fan unfolded in the sunlight
Is a giant talon
My wife with the back of a bird in vertical flight
My wife whose nape is of smooth worn stone and wet chalk
That are lustrous and feathered like arrows
A mine and a platypus
With eyes full of water to drink in prisons
My wife with eyes that are forests forever under the ax


These are my favorite lines from Free Union.

My reaction to this poem surprised me, but only days after I had read it for the first time.
I am, on most occasions, extremely feminist.
And by calling myself a feminist, I mean my guy friends make fun of me and call me that.
I mean I don't like words such as "cunt" or "pussy."
And I find the emphasis on physical form and characteristics quite annoying, from both male and female spectators.
I don't personally consider myself a "feminist," I consider myself a "personist."
But, the point is, I liked this poem.
This did not surprise me until class, when someone brought up how it bothered them that the speaker is only praising the physical.
I was shocked. I like a poem, where a man loves his wife, but only due to her physical attributes? This is quite unlike me. Such behavior normally enrages me. Disgusts me. Basically, I get very upset when people only care about looks etc.

So...why did I like this poem?
I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that I like this poem because it is, in fact, NOT just about the physical.

How did I determine that?
This man is praising his wife for her physical attributes, sure, but the metaphors he chose to use also reflect her character.
"My wife whose hair is a brush fire" makes me imagine a woman who has a fiery attitude.
"Whose thoughts are summer lightning" clearly isn't about the physical.
"Whose mouth is a bright cockade with the fragrance of a star of the first magnitude" does not make me think of the fragrance of her breath, but rather the sweetness of her words.
The poem leaves me with the impression of a man in love with his wife, a woman of slight, yet womanly build, who has a personality almost too large for her physical frame.
In order to express how wonderful he thinks she is, he cannot simply say it in a sentence or a paragraph, but he has to list her physical attributes, and he relates them back to her personality.

I also like how he used repetition with "my wife."
He keeps saying it over and over again, and I imagine him saying it with pride.
"My wife..."
It's almost as if he's amazed she is his wife, and has to keep reminding himself of it before it can sink in.

One last idea that intrigued me in class was if the wife would like the poem if she read it.
The question was asked by a boy, and the professor asked the girls to answer it.
As a girl, I have to say this: if I had a husband who wrote a poem for me like that, I would be speechlessly happy. This poem shows how much he appreciates her and is in awe of her inner and outer beauty. How could a wife not be glad about that?