Dancing with ballet-slippered
flowers, silly with love –
twirling to dizzy –
hips once propelled
expression and her
strong shoulders
shimmied.
At some pubescent point, labels
question her swagger
and her voice dims.
A fluttering moth settles
just beyond the light.
Dismissing sage wisdom
of the red moon cycles,
commitment comes easily
to a hormone-regulated
tidy, shrink-wrapped pelvis.
Like a doll she once fed.
Free movement is often mistaken,
a simple smile a hem line
– aka –
a frat house invitation.
Fighting a tucked and lifted
disconnect, her body vacates.
Annoyance and cruel
judgement in
any dressing room.
A grueling monologue
of shame, the loss
of the shimmy.
Yet the roaming huntress
appears in waning moonlight,
reminding her that her roots lie
in the fiber of the forest’s
healing foundation.
Now armed with wise supplies
centered in a cool clearing
her toes dig in, waiting
for reunion.
Energy uncoils – swirling to lifting-
spiraling to rising – gaze to finger-tips
her wrists and breast turn upward
as waves curl over her collar
loosening bones just enough
to set her flesh free.
