Page 8 - Contrast1981Springv24

GIRL'S DREAM OF THE
ELEMENTS

1

AIR
They're full with you-those balloons!
It's your perfect nothing-shape
I can't steer clear
of. I'm slipping on hot jewels
as I try to hold you.

I dry you, touch your hair,
hating science-teacher talk of you.
I'm going to marry you, change
you into a lizard. I slip

my fingers beneath your hail
and snow chords.

2

WATER

begins the day I arrange creations
of drowning in a line on my schooldesk.
The woman-shape is water's dried body.
I'll meet him-the boy in the white
sweater-fluidly. The freedom

of water expands: a rising whale,
explodes. Pieces

of my name blend into water's natural
color. To face water, I think,
stuns the sea.

3
EARTH
It doesn't matter-your moods. I know
the source of pine and how to shrink
into a needle, the weave
of your voice. The sound
makes me cry so I bring stories
to rumble the waterfall inside
you. I spin you around my brown
fingers, fall inside you.

Earth, I'm your slipping girl.

6