Francine thirteen and bemused
by what her body’s done,
by how its bloomed and ached
and made the men she likes the best
stand wary off—her swimming coach,
her science teacher, her stepdad
she’s known since she was three—
while others in stores, on streets,
when she walks through the mall
with her friends or her mom,
how they turn like flowers
to sun, to stare, no care
for her, just her height, her shape,
her length of leg, her curves.
She did not understand
how she could be both poles
at once—repel—attract—
and not be simply herself,
the girl she had always been,
an otter sleek and sure
to slip in and out of waves.
Francine at thirteen: she thinks
she is no fool, thinks she knows
astronomy, the fixed
eternal order of stars
and planets, the constancy
of strong atomic bonds,
the certainty of gravity.
Yet here she is—herself
and something else, something more
or less. She did not want this change
she did not understand.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) to enjoy. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, Willawaw Journal, and elsewhere. He and his patient partner, the mother of their children, divide their year between the cool Oregon coast and California’s relatively dry Central Valley.