WHY I AM LOUD

Daily I sing camp songs to a cast of thousands
Boldly I recline in the pit of this orchestra
A spring peach in a night gown grown
Justly proud of my fleshy fevered cleavage
Jumping up and down until
They look at me,
And I become the scene.

Once in the spotlight I cannot relinquish
Long after I quicken empty of words
I am she might and muscle as I he conjures noises
Public displays of bodily function
Aiming to keep an audience captured
To watch
To listen
To me

Once I was pinched to the cold lost wall
An ugly frazzled flower always tripping
In gold glossed high school halls
Over long legs of boys, over long legs of boys
The grip of the cold lost wall was fierce
But refusing to take root or suffer this load
I made my escape in a green gray Chevy
Up an unshouldered bayou road.

That's why I am loud.

The more books I open the more I read
The less shy I pretend I am
I ask the world to touch me with delicate fingers
Desiring open spaces of mountain and sky
No walls but canyons and oceans for me

Where I cannot be held by
Walls that grope
Or am forced to hang out
In dingy coops
with the chickens.
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This poem, written in 1997, is a collaboration with a SF poet named Landry. Although I only offered a few changes which she said she liked, she didn't think it was her poem anymore. Well, I liked her root images immensely, and despite the tightening chances I offer it here...