By Lucille Clifton
whatever slid into my mother's room that
late june night, tapping her great belly,
summoned me out roundheaded and unsmiling.
is this the moon, my father used to grin.
cradling me? it was the moon
but nobody knew it then.
the moon understands dark places.
the moon has secrets of her own.
she holds what light she can.
we girls were ten years old and giggling
in our hand-me-downs. we wanted breasts,
pretended that we had them, tissued
our undershirts. jay johnson is teaching
me to french kiss, ella bragged, who
is teaching you? how do you say; my father?
the moon is queen of everything.
she rules the oceans, rivers, rain.
when I am asked whose tears these are
I always blame the moon.
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Don't judge me too harshly but I spent another afternoon in the mall -- this time with Hufflepants, whom I hadn't seen in weeks because of the snow, who was in the neighborhood and suggested that we really needed to check out the Hot Topic Alice in Wonderland merchandise together -- it's all a lot of fun but I have the same concern I expressed to Jules the day before, namely that it's hard to tell whether Alice will be more than a token character in her own story while Tim Burton indulges his love affairs with Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. (Superpoke Pets this morning had Wonderland backgrounds and plushies, yay!) While we were in Old Navy, my mom texted to tell me she was going to the mall, so after Hufflepants left, I met my mom and we went to a bunch of stores. I suppose this proves that after a week of being cooped up due to snow, even the mall seems exciting as long as one is there hanging out with people!
Our evening was spent watching the Olympics, mostly the men's long program, which made me hate both the NBC announcers and the scoring system anew...Patrick Chan would have been my favorite skater in the competition if he hadn't tried jumps he just couldn't land, the German guy looked too tired to stand, the Chinese guy who skated the Charlie Chaplin program was a delight and I'm sorry he didn't finish higher, though I also thought that again, Weir's scores were much too low. I am very happy for Evan Lysacek -- I loved the snakes on his costume, after growing up with lightning bolts, hee -- and I'm also glad Plushenko skated well, I prefer to have my favorite win rather than the person I'm not rooting for blow it. Here are some more photos from the University of Maryland's Junior Visit Day, mostly of the school mascot and the snow:
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