DANCING PRINCESSES
By James-Clifton Spires (copyright 2000)
"Stand Still," I shout, against my will,
as the rambling rose in her cotton clothes
walks down Main Street,
freshly gowned in a new clinging frock,
her body refusing the still, pastel prison,
moving with ripples of flesh
and heat beneath the thin fabric.
The wind which caresses the material against her skin
calls out to old men like me in our passing cars,
our front steps, our cigarettes
burning to for-a-moment forgotten ashes
as we watch this dancer
pour down the street
in streams of strolling rhythms all her own.
"Do you like my dress?" she says,
without words, knowing the answer:
"Oh, yes! We love it all!"
Women shimmer
in spring and summer dresses,
their exposed natural shoulders most beautiful
when reflecting, in their size-14 fleshiness,
sweaty shadows of delight
in their collar bones underneath spaghetti straps,
in their breath, in their wide smiling mouths
uplifted to catch the possibly
of humidity in the air, suddenly, hopefully
becoming thunderous rain.
Grown women --- Janes and Marilyns ---
in sun dresses of flowing light,
laughing like unformed twiggy school girls
pretending to be mature,
Like the treasured waifs flat-walking on their runways
in the latest lightweight fashions
hanging limp on human coat hangers,
doing a dance without life.
No, the treasures are the women,
the soft, rounded children of substance
who know best how to dance in the spring.
Their free exposure of just enough of their scenic routes,
their blossom-bursting child-like souls,
spinning, flowing, sending sauce over heir shoulders,
soft self-love that invites us all
to shiver at their loveliness,
to marvel at their thick completeness,
that astounds the observer
at the beauty which dances
in the first week of spring.
