The Theodore I Knew

I Knew A Chipmunk Named Theodore

I am a woman with bones that break
And thighs now that spread across the continental shelf
In a manifestation of destiny
When I am breaking arm off chair
Or lifting myself onto stadium seat, to a squeak
No one can speak of it
And heavens applaud the truth of it

When I was thinner it wasn't a figure
Cutting across the plain to curl around an enchanting
Twist and shout or a Suzy Q, let's twist.
Even then the mirror on the wall,
Of the dancing studio, revealed a fear of moving
A marionette with twisted strings falling
Through the floor in sallow face, marked
By something a fellow named
Kevin Moore penned in my yearbook
Saying, " a face like a relief map of the moon"
He teaches now psychology in Indiana.

If every thing could take form of polar opposite
Then I might fly with grace into the space
Of another who awaits the timeless beloved immortal gift of love.
But I am not in that place, not in this elastic waist.
I sit in the shade of the beautiful, with off rhyme
Imagining the capacity to be seen free of
The body that will always contain me.
Nor ever written to in verse or voice
( time to fall into the musicdance timelessly inelegant )

I Knew a Woman
by Theodore Roethke

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)