With Shaven Head and Heart Shaped Daggers for Eyes

(For Sinéad, Pema, X González, Grace, +)

by Sara Atwater

When you were small and couldn’t

reach the place where rollercoasters

bend and break

you were angry.

But the fierceness cocooned.

Thriving larva luxuriating in sticky

promises swaddling your nascent

fire-justice.

Waking you found tower walls crumbling

around the tiny space you had

left to grow. 

Coil unwind. Limp elements collect and sediment.

Gale toss untethered stones across the commons.

Tousling your hair until you can’t-won’t-never-should’ve

take it anymore.

Locks fall, feather light. Years shorn

from your shoulders, now contracted.

Release a fawn: the wood opens to your

fierce(st) spirit.

   Now you are                     Maasai-rich.                          Nomad-free.      

Come-of-age-old.                 Landlessly benefacted.

 No farm-fed dignitary

school official         entertainment executive                 chancers

can yank those excised chains.

BIO: Sara Atwater lives and writes in Brussels, Belgium. After teaching secondary school English for a short lifetime in the US (where she is from), the UK and Belgium, she started writing poetry and fiction herself. A selection of her sonnets was recently published in the 16th Edition of the Delmarva Review. She is currently finishing a PhD on feminist comedy and cabaret.