Graceful Margins

Being long limbed and able to balance on a plank, I’ve been described as graceful. On my Hammer surfboard I’m told I’m easy to spot, the grace in my hands even at a distance if I am lucky enough to pop up and stand, ride the glass before being pitched into roiling whitewater, or jumping off before my fins sharpen in sand.

I am also elegant on skates, roller, ice or in-lines and take the Riverwalk pier bridges as fast as I once did the steep mounded moguls of Mandan on skis. I’m no longer green-stick willowy and even if the poise is still there, I do forward my participation in sports as being old lady, “Oh, yes, I play tennis, but old-lady style,” I say, and in this way I prepare future recreational partners that my speeds and daring have both stiffened—deep dance dips swap the smile on my face to that of a cornered raccoon.

What I am not so agile at doing is breaking up with men &/or holding boundaries, often second guessing, duck-diving, jumping the cracks in fluid thought of what I think I ought to do, be nice, and forgive, no matter the offense, and many of these, with sparring jackets like to fence, unidentified, white wasps, stabbing and jabbing and after pulling off their masks, which had hidden the fangs of snakes, they shake hands, smiles of hyena’s, assuring me all was in good sport.

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