Helen will practice gestures
to quiet the futures she promised herself
as a child: I will one day be a police-
officer or a princess, she’d committed,
standing on the living-room coffee table
all tutu and headband and wand.
It is always time for dress-up
somewhere, she will reason, all chignon
and pantsuit-pretend,
and in the mirror will find shapes
where her eyes used to be.
From: http://causticfrolic.org/issues/glass-ceilings/future-tense/
Date: 2017
By: Leigh K. Sugar (19??- )