Pushed into shore by Zephyr and Chloris, I was
under the direction of Spring who cloaked me in a robe
bedecked with flowers.
Enter the other grade 8 graduates who were also
readying themselves for the ceremony and dance.
Take Heaven! as Fra Giovanni says.
Young and luscious was everything and everyone.
Particularly Bernardo who was moving to Mexico.
Unavailable—at someone else’s side.
But Daniel (he had a smile!) and I danced
every slow dance, pulling away—only to
re-engage with the next slow song
till the night was almost over.
Yanked from our revelry, Bernardo
pointed to the exit, asked me to follow.
Under the splashes of school light
breaking the darkness, he led me across the field
empty of conversation, where he sat on the swings,
requested I join him. I declined,
too worried about muddying my dress—
yellow crimped cotton—and my almost matching shawl.
Pumping his legs to gain height, Bernardo said, He’s
using you. Daniel only wants you for your body.
Bemused—I snorted.
Egypt’s Sphinx only knows what I should have said.
Rising out of a scallop shell—whole and grown to
take my place among the beauties,
you wanted me to smell the fresh air,
play on the swings. I wanted the dance, to be
under the pulse of music. Wasn’t it
better to have and to hold than to stand alone?
Easy was how Daniel and I fit together.
Reasons why we choose another—
tonight or any other night—is still a question all these
years later in the orange grove of the present.

—Lisa Young

Acrostic poem, first published in Poetry Pause, 2021