In a Blink

Writer’s Island prompt #14 – “Just Around The Corner”

Just around the corner in my mind,
I am fifteen, he is thirty-two, thinks
to teach me how to be a woman
and, for a while, I thought to let him.

Never turned that particular corner,
blink of an eye passed by to learn
that a woman has power in other
places, power to shape, create
a world of her own, other passions
with which to hone a self, not reliant
on anyone else’s idea of what
she was born to be,
ought to be,
should be.

Now, nearly twice as old as he
was then, am content to be
just what I am,  a woman alone,
creating a world, a home
of words as solid as brick,
twice as thick with meaning
as that one he imagined,
would have fashioned, then
forced me to fit into. A world
in which I would have been
no more than a diversion
from his life with a wife
and several children.

He found another to play
that role, then died younger
than most. And I, with another
blink of an eye, spend my time
looking toward future corners
for myself and my daughters,
yet to be turned and all that
is still to be learned
about being a woman.

Elizabeth Crawford 1/9/09