The Sleeping Beauty
Like a frog out of the water,
like a big clumsy fly caught in a screen,
I entered womanhood
flailing my long legs.
Jumping Double Dutch,
in sneakered feet
pounding a Morse Code of denial into the sidewalk,
so it echoed throughout the neighborhood:
not me, it said, not me,
I'll play with dolls forever, I'll be a boy
if I want to, I'll go off and play by the railroad tracks.
Or spinning crazy like a top
in the grass of the backyard,
almost mowing mother's roses down with my arms,
then swooning beneath our peach tree
heavy with ripe fruit.
Dizzy it always made me dizzy,
and sleepy too, this newly tilting
pigeon thrumming inside me.
Thought I'd never want a prince
bending over me
his face so much like a brother's
with its teasing wheedling eyes
and mouth that kisses too hard.
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