The plane ascends.
Women disrobe,
crossing into Turkey’s airspace.
Their hair cascades like waterfalls.
I lift my skirt to let my legs breathe.
So much sin is compressed
between my teeth & my toes!
I stride over the pavement.
The wind runs through my hair.
I am happy to unveil—
for myself, not a male guardian—
to return to my body,
to desire myself for myself,
in this corner
of the cockpit
poised between two countries,
without male eyes
watching over me.
Rebecca Ruth Gould is the author of “Cityscapes” (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), and “Writers and Rebels” (Yale University Press, 2016). She is the translator of “High Tide of the Eyes” (The Operating System, 2019), “After Tomorrow the Days Disappear” (Northwestern University Press, 2016), and “Prose.”