Promise of Summer
Topic: Poetry
for Clancy Rose

It is not yet April and already she wears sandals,
her piggish toes exposed to the world.
In her red hoodie, blue jeans, and flip flops
this daughter of mine looks changed?
suddenly, girlishly metropolitan.
Her perma-scowl is balanced perfectly
between pony tails that only hint
at her waning innocence.

I thought to stop her before she left,
some instinct toward maternal wisdom
rising in my throat, but choked back
by my experience as a woman in the world,
free of relationships that define me,
feeling a feminine power like
shrugging on a borrowed red dress,
a little flamboyant, but fun to try on.
I want her to shrug on the dress and dance,
her hands reaching for the sun as she grows long,
her fingers curling like tendril?d vines.

She is eleven and her breasts have risen
beneath her pink undershirts like
the bread our grandmother used to make,
magically and quickly reaching its full potential.
She would shame me for telling that
but I cannot help but marvel
at Rose blooming right before me,
her petals unfolding by the hour.

This morning she looked relaxed in her clothes,
sporting the stoic cynicism that makes the young look cool,
posturing apathy in the very slackness of her stance.
I am not allowed to touch or intervene.
I must trust what I have done and what she becomes.
She is locked tight, a fleshy seed with a tiny leaf,
the promise of summer growing inside it.