Delicate is a bravery poem, a celebration of anyone who dares step up and out no matter how terrifying it may seem to us all.
Delicate – a Bravery Poem
When my plastic skin melted into a puddle…if only I had skimmed the barks of trees and felt that texture is matter and matters to the birds and the bees who will not cling onto slippery slopes. I was used to slathering oil on my face plumbing the arid valley around the wings of my nose, I plumped and smoothened my future double-chin, I lifted and tucked the dark rims, I concealed the buds of branches and my foundation was above all, cover-all clown faces, pants around the ankles, frost-bitten lips, and burnt bones….months of leaf feasts peaked in a shivering swaddle and now the sun fills my dimples, rays tug at my limbs I’m moving downstream. This is easy / life in a school of tadpoles, one fishtail to lose, four legs to grow / to one day,
live between river and woods, wide-eyed and quick-tongued but not v the painted ladies. They do not vanish in winter, they migrate to where the food is, thousands of miles across scapes only to home here again come spring, icy winds and squalls no match for their paper-thin canvasses gliding above the surface where you or I try growing tomatoes on a good day. On a bad day, we wear scarves and costly shades so no one can fish for our eyes. Then, everything is tanned, even the flicker of a heart has a tint of chocolate choking it. Why hide? Why not drink the rain and wash in it, make toast in the sun and bathe in it and plummet into the plumbline between the sky and the green, green grass / every day?