The Art of the Old Lesbian by Diane Silver

Is to slide down the slope of a woman's body
where every time her tongue tastes skin she
splits apart somebody's wall of rules.
 
She's practiced at slamming a sledge hammer
into the concrete that presses down with the heft
of millions of mouths chanting sin-sin-sin.
 
To claim the right to live, she once had to wrench
her body out of the sucking muck of tales spread
thick by magazines, movies, and newspapers.  
 
She's been perfecting her art for 50 years. She
knows what it feels like to skid down a steep hill
far from home on a street in a city without maps.
 
She knows the exhilaration of living a story 
no one believed could be written. She's thrilled 
you crafted a narrative no one has read before.
 
You realize, don’t you, that artists never retire. 
The art of the old lesbian has always been 
to become new.

Diane Silver is a poet whose essays have appeared in Ms and The Progressive. Most recently her poetry has been published in MockingHeart Review and the upcoming anthology, Kansas Speaks Out: Poems in an Age of Me Too. Her most recent books are the Daily Shot of Hope meditation series.

Read more of her amazing poetry on site, here and here: https://150kansaspoems.wordpress.com/2019/08/26/to-the-woman-i-loved-too-soon-by-diane-silver/

Guest Editor Shibazrule, aka Lisa D. Chavez, is a poet based in New Mexico.  Her poetry books include Destruction Bay (West End Press) and In An Angry Season. (University of Arizona Press). She also writes memoir and fiction, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of New Mexico.  She’s delighted to have the opportunity to be Guest Editor here at The Coop for the month of August.