A Woman of Summer

by Nochipa
Pen Shells
Second Place, October 2007
Judged by E. Ethelbert Miller


Tell me what is more beautiful
than strength of a life
well-lived.

My hands, lean and firm,
are scarred by
youthful poverty.

while my sculpted arms,
sinewy and brown,
were chiseled by a farmer’s hoe.

and these legs, are solid
and shapely, strong
as trees grown from hill-treading

My wit is sharp
as tobacco spears
from traps of star-dream slayers

while my heart beats steady
for hundreds of children
who listened to my song.

So, now that you know
I am not a T.V. woman-child,
am I less lovely?