The Gaze

I love the men who lower their gazes
And the women who lower their gazes
And the men who look hungrily
And the women who look hungrily
I have been the man with the hungry gaze
And the man holding back, letting things
cover themselves that should be covered
I have been the woman with the ravenous mouth
And the woman with the disciplined will
like an axe sharply splitting wood
like an axe at the moment when it is lifted,
poised, in that pause before descent
And I am the gaze, and the pause,
and the wood that is split