tread softly...

Good evening, dear world...

I would have you know that I am procrastinating. I'm between health papers; I've been researching online resources for smoking prevention, and now I need to write a page on our guest lecturer from last week, but I very much want a rambling break. This particular guest speaker was hilarious, new to the department, very self-serious and aggressive with the apathetic classroom, almost a 25-year-old Carol Burnett in her mannerisms. It was wonderful, but I'm supposed to write something serious on it.

But instead I am not. I'm going to type out for you one of my poems, the third out of four submitted and my personal favorite. The first two I wrote were rather ambiguous, pretty but muddy, and the fourth one was an epic in length - two full pages of size eight font - and I threshed out the concept and wrote the first half while I was angry, but had to write the second half after I'd run the anger out, so it didn't turn out too coherently. But this one is nice, and I didn't get any reviews of "huh?" from my class. Tell me what you think!

By the way, the title is Latin. It means either authority or domain; both fit, so I used it. Yes, I was fishing vaguely when I came up with it.



Regnum

I have never danced.
Mothers ask me after I have coached
Their daughters' milky butterfly feet
Into a pair of pointe shoes,
Silvery-pink platforms, twins of a diamond rack,
Where one graceless step cracks an ankle.
Or little girls smile up at me stammeringly,
Hoping their new baby-brassy taps
Have been given to them by a prima donna,
A fairy godmother.
No, I stumble, I do waltz on the weekends,
But I spent my high school nights in Latin textbooks.
They gather themselves up from the bench,
Snatch the shoebox from my hands.
One smooths a "dance is life" shirt over her
Beautiful ribs. Smiles down at me.
I have never danced.