Our Creation of Feminism
       

In the beginning, an endless tiara,
those tissue box princesses, as much

as I hated your tippy toe dance
was hard not to love. What I'd wanted

came back: that dump truck, that crane.
That joke about six and its fear of seven?

Let us say on day two you bore your claws,
drew our portrait as a family living in caves.

(In the next booth Wife growls
and orders more beer.)

Then came day three. In dry erase crayon
scrawled on our mirror—Let the net throw stones.

Long ago I longed for a wax mustache
to be Cather playing Beauty's merchant father.

The past tears like a leotard, like handmade
tickets to Dancing Queen. So gladly we stomped

on that old parade. Day four brought us poster board.
Wrenching rusty wheels off on afternoon five,

the neighbor's wife won the prettiest gun.
Day six? Its foam box stored an agate necklace.

Day seven came and went.

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Copyright © 2018 Laurie Filipelli All rights reserved
from Girl Paper Stone
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission