Saturday, May 25, 2013
“The Porch of the Maiden”
Named by my father, who was well-read,
especially for the neighborhood.
She sat there of summer evenings and
never wore a shirt. She had been our tomboy,
angry organizer at our pickup games, exhorter
to get us to play with some directed passion.
All that ended with her porch gig, which
meant nothing when she resembled a boy,
but soon the little breasts were baseball-sized.
Her family eventually prevailed as she
never appeared there without crossing her
arms in front of her chest.
Then, in course, wearing a t-shirt, brilliant
white. Florescent before summer storms.
Soon, quite a surprise as she joined the
other girls, actually the girlie-girlie
contingent talking endlessly of boys,
and trading movie magazines.
She fooled us, too, by going to Commercial High
for the secretarial course. She, and a few others
in the city, though, transforming girls’ basketball
by playing a quick-passing, even driving, game.
Again her path diverged, being given a basketball
scholarship by Syracuse in the degree field of
Sports Management.
But she threw her queasy family a final joker by eloping
in her freshman year with a new graduate of that program.
They lived in a lot of New York towns after that, he doing sports spots for radio stations.
When female twins arrived, he, fortunately,
took over the management of a small FM outlet.
By the time he handled sports for a major
New York TV station, she finished her degree
at Columbia. But in Social Work.
She now works for an organization encouraging
young women to enter the sciences.
A very womanly woman to be sure, but one thing
never changed. The fierce brow.
Named by my father, who was well-read,
especially for the neighborhood.
She sat there of summer evenings and
never wore a shirt. She had been our tomboy,
angry organizer at our pickup games, exhorter
to get us to play with some directed passion.
All that ended with her porch gig, which
meant nothing when she resembled a boy,
but soon the little breasts were baseball-sized.
Her family eventually prevailed as she
never appeared there without crossing her
arms in front of her chest.
Then, in course, wearing a t-shirt, brilliant
white. Florescent before summer storms.
Soon, quite a surprise as she joined the
other girls, actually the girlie-girlie
contingent talking endlessly of boys,
and trading movie magazines.
She fooled us, too, by going to Commercial High
for the secretarial course. She, and a few others
in the city, though, transforming girls’ basketball
by playing a quick-passing, even driving, game.
Again her path diverged, being given a basketball
scholarship by Syracuse in the degree field of
Sports Management.
But she threw her queasy family a final joker by eloping
in her freshman year with a new graduate of that program.
They lived in a lot of New York towns after that, he doing sports spots for radio stations.
When female twins arrived, he, fortunately,
took over the management of a small FM outlet.
By the time he handled sports for a major
New York TV station, she finished her degree
at Columbia. But in Social Work.
She now works for an organization encouraging
young women to enter the sciences.
A very womanly woman to be sure, but one thing
never changed. The fierce brow.
Labels: ambition, feminism, Porch of the Maidens, social work, Sports, Sports Management, tomboy, women's sports
