Puberty
        after Andrew Wyeth's painting

There is no jouncing for the girl
in the pink shirt-waister:
she is prone, like any painted female,
she is feline, and her face is not painted.

Her Thinking Place is a field
widening to a horizon that holds
a barn, a house and two sheds,
erect as gravestones on the skyline.

She would crawl there if she could,
enter the house, like womanhood,
but for now she waits, a cat in the grass,
stalking what lies ahead.

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Copyright © 2012 Nuala Ní Chonchúir All rights reserved
from The Juno Charm
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission