this week's assignment was to take a line from another partipant's poem and weave it into an original piece. i chose: "there they are, wandering the streets of my life" by GreenishLady. (i must preface this by saying i will probably continue to edit this as it was written while one of my boys kept pushing his trains on my arms). take care.
*boys*
in the beginning, there were boys.
my mother worried, my father frowned.
there were constant reminders to
cross my ankles
long before i understood what
a pair of loose ankles were capable of.
though i was in public school, i was made
increasingly private
in too long skirts and buttoned-up blouses.
yet despite the precautions, the boys still came.
randy, and alan, and brian, and mitchell,
and jason
frankie, bruce, chris, mike, robert, eric, and paul
when i close my eyes
there they are, wandering the streets of my life.
i, the early bloomer, in my awkward style
spent most of my pollen before twenty
on boys who have forgotten by now.
so when i gave birth to my first son
and then my second
i praised the fates for being gracious enough
to deny me a daughter
with ankles to worry about
and leave me,
in the end,
surrounded by boys.
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6 comments:
this took me back and I enjoyed the ride. Such a delicate mix of the bittersweet. Very nice.
Beautiful poem.
I wasn't a boy magnet and didn't have to learn the lessons of modesty as the person in the poem did but as the (former tom-boy) mother of two boys I sometimes agree about not having to explain how to be a girl to a daughter.
I like what you did with the line, and I've enjoyed exploring your blogs. Days of early-babyhood are far, far behind me (my son will be 21 this year) but it's been lovely meeting your two! Thank you.
This is a terrific and surprising poem. I esepcially love:
"cross my ankles
long before i understood what
a pair of loose ankles were capable of."
nice work!
Ah, boys. What can you really say? Well you've said much and said it well. I love your crossed ankles and the boys that wander your life.
This is so much fun to read and I can so relate to the 'long skirts and buttoned up blouses' - my mother insisted on that for me too. I love the loose ankles line and i like the way you bring it to the present at the end.
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