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Thursday, August 28, 2014

approaching 31 on stilts

Well now, I've gone quite awhile without writing on here. I'm squeaking this post in at the last summer minute, sliding my foot over the sun-faded, dusty line. I have been writing a lot, but it's all been to-do lists, budgets, to-do lists, organizational emails, cries for help & attempts at delegation, and to-do lists. My slow meandering thoughts of norm have been replaced by frenzied urgency: much to be done! Fifteen days until I happily tie the knot. Nineteen days until I take another step into this decade. I usually mark my birthday with a post. Je serai sur ma façon de manger des macarons when the clock strikes thirty-one, so I'm posting this now. Happy new year. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go ahead and get married to the absolute Best.


Approaching 31 on Stilts (a tall girl poem).
Because I've got a giant writer-crush on Kimberly Kaye.
Her 31 poem kills this one into a million pieces and sends it to the wind.

My legs haven't grown, and they didn't need to;
I've been baring my ankles and dusting the top shelf
since the age of twelve. Class photo: back middle.
School dance: accessory to the wall. My shoulders
met the ceiling like Alice, and I waited
for the catch-up.

Three decades gone and I'm still a tall order,
particular & gangly,
stretched & capacitous & on my own eye-level.
I've long had the view and I finally use it:
patient strides on legs well worn and used, now, to
bridging distances; puddle leaps, deep snow,
flooding window wells and trips to the mailbox.

I long wondered what my long legs were for
and now I know: they're stems
made for the roots my life has given me.
They're for wrapping you up,
taking on the world with you,
standing cooly in the waves, feet buried,
my bones like weeds in the water; ever flexible.