Poetry Entry Three

First Meeting
by Jennifer Lawrence

My stepmother harped on me:
Come in from out of the rain, you’ll catch your death of cold.
I waited until she’d gone to the grocery store
To sneak back out, the warm summer downpour
Drenching me in seconds.
Barefoot, tank-top-clad, shorts pasted to my thighs by the storm,
I laughed as I danced,
Whirling around and around and around
Until I was drunk with dizziness, my head
Swimming with it. I sang as I danced, laughed as I sang,
Danced as I laughed,
Filled with an irrepressible joy
That came from nowhere and everywhere,
Throwing my face up to the sky to hear the thunder
Echo laughter back at me,
The purple-grey stormclouds seeming
The face of handsome bearded men, all alike.
When I spun too much, I fell, ripping open my knees on the sidewalk,
Caring not at all as the blood mingled with the rain,
Delirious with the giddy, breathless exaltation
Welling up inside of me.
I didn’t know where it came from then,
At fourteen too young and too ignorant
To recognize you as more than myth:
Drunken lord, breaker of boundaries,
Daring me to transgress against parental rule;
But that dance — that wild and willful dance –
Was my first introduction to You,
Dancing for the sake of dancing,
Dancing for the joy of movement,
Dancing while the rain and the warm summer breeze
Danced with me.
These bones are much older now,
And I am no longer so naive and unlearned as once I was.
I have known your presence in other realms:
The sweet intoxication of wine,
The dangerous thrill of breaking boundaries set on me by others,
The maddened fury of Maenad rage,
The blinding ecstasy of coupling,
But I am not so old yet that I have forgotten you.
And so, every so often–
In the summer, when the clouds hang low
And the wind is sweet with the promise of desire,
And I hear your deep voice boom in the thunder as it nears,
I strip down to shorts and tank top,
Kick off my shoes as the rain starts to fall,
And rush outside to whirl around and around and around,
Dancing with you again.