Anita was one of those agile girls
whose limber and daring I envied.
Her front flips and back flips,
backbends and full splits.
I couldn’t even cartwheel.
I did a competent somersault,
but it garnered little praise.
So, I spent a good deal of time
just laying in the grass.
Observing.
Awed by long, lanky, bendy bodies –
especially Anita’s –
twisting, turning, and taking flight.
Wondering why and how
she could do such things so skillfully,
when those skills so skillfully eluded me.
Or was it the passion to try?
But Anita’s dexterity
defied the norms of stretchability
because Anita added double-jointed
to her impressive athletic ability.
She’d often demonstrate her loose-jointed trait
by bending her willowy hand the wrong way;
masterfully mis-shaping her long, freckled arm,
as if made of soft, moist, modeling clay.
She could do the same with her shoulders and knees
until her bowed silhouette looked strange indeed:
a favorite umbrella blown inside out
by a rib-bending gust in a strong, spring shower.
Illogical and ludicrous.
Almost cartoonish.
Watching her move I felt ever defeated,
disjointed,
dysfunctional.
A dyed-in-the-wool, tried and failed tumbler.
Forever to watch from the shade of a tree,
where I marveled at my elastic friend,
who could bend,
and bend,
and bend,
and bend.
Dog-eared Stories 