Flashback

By: Charise M. Hoge

I swim with dragonflies

skittering the surface

of this spring fed pond

at one with my immersion,

reversing a situational gravity

of immense abiding heat

and the claustrophobia

suburbia imparts,

a body in a body of water

in a bowl of earth

in a country that has forsaken

the my of body, for the body politic.

Another hot July without air

conditioning I sit in front of the fan

abandoning shirt for red bandeau

ready-made from a headband

stretched across my nine-year-old

chest, for a modicum of modesty.

Two daughters later, first winter

after a stint in Bangkok, snowbanks

cover streets and yards. Girls stream

into our house, dropping hats, gloves,

jackets, boots, socks, snow pants,

sweaters, then shirts and underwear

as they absorb the stuffy heat

and music left playing in the living

room. They skip, jump, turn,

laugh with a giddy girlishness.

Womanhood will startle them

soon enough;

and I relish this reprieve of sanctions.

To be feral in the sanctity of home.

To be home in the my of body.

---

Charise M. Hoge is a dance/movement therapist, writer, and performing artist. She is the author of Striking Light from Ashes and Muse in a Suitcase. Her poetry is also featured in Next Line, Please: Prompts to Inspire Poets and Writers (edited by David Lehman, Cornell University Press), as well as notable journals and magazines. Charise is poet-in-residence for the annual Art on Cullers Run (Mathias, West Virginia) and Art All Night H Street (Washington, DC).