Transitions

I call to mind the lingering stares
that once roamed my full and lush figure
and I must admit to missing the signs of appreciation that,
years ago,
I held in disdain.

Now, don’t get me wrong,
I still receive a smile, a wink and a nod
on the rare occasion when,
feeling like a diva
I put on the red dress,
show a little cleavage and
let my hips swing a bit freer when I walk.

But, on those days,
my moon never fails to ask
“Mom, is that what you’re wearing today?”

As if she is, by common law
and the rights of adolescence,
the only one of us allowed
to swim in the pleasure of desire given
and desire received.

I laugh at her question (most of the time)
bob my head in the affirmative
and summon up my determination to Be beauty.

Though I wonder why it gets so much harder
to know that I-got-it-goin’-on feeling
with each year that passes.
Or, when it was that I began to doubt
the power of my womanly body
which,
though larger
and marked with many more curves
still radiates warmth,
still opens to enjoy a soft embrace,

still surrounds the object of its yearning
with a moist and enveloping passion.

Strange and constricting
the way the world defines me
as it passes by
without the slightest notion
of the depths of my mind, my heart or my pleasures.
Casting an eye only at the surface;
as if
what you see
really is
what you get.

Mature, aged, older, one foot
on the banana peel, ripe, antique,
durable, seasoned;
call me what you will -

All I ask is to be truly seen
and in the seeing to be known
and in the knowing to be Loved.

For I am ALIVE -
more than I have ever been,
though far less than I will become.