“Taking us by and large, we’re a queer lot
We women who write poetry. And when you think
How few of us there’ve been, it’s queerer still.
I wonder what it is that makes us do it.
Singles us out to scribble down, man-wise,
The fragments of ourselves.”
Amy Lowell

And so I’ve learned, across phone lines with background static, and small children sucking on their mother’s breast, while we jiggle laundry and lovers, balance belief with lack of self-esteem, that we are a queer lot, we women who aspire to the poetic word.

We sit in our pajamas silently penning Pulitzers while the world races by outside our doorstep, unaware. How many of you, how much of me, has been steeped in loneliness? Fear that it isn’t enough, could not possibly matter to anyone but ourselves.

And then there is a voice on the other end of the line, bringing with it the recognition that we are more than the echo in a silent room of fingers tapping impatient keys. We are more than longing. We are more than ache.