Finally the silence of women began to disappear.
It crumbled like old bread.
It evaporated like steam from broccoli.
It rose like the scent of turmeric from kitchens.
It mixed in with birdsong.
It flew over rivers and oceans.
It settled in prairies, it poured out like water trapped in leaves.

The silence was one language.
All the women on earth spoke it:
they had mastered the tongue.

But it vanished in the sound of vacuum cleaners.
It lifted like smoke from chimneys.
In winter, it covered the snow. It was white, then,
so at first no one noticed. More snow, they thought,
longing for spring. When spring came,
the silence burst into cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, apple.
This world of ours! the women cried.

And their stories rushed out like breath 
held almost too long—