Tiffany Chaney

Irene
 
I marvel at your windblown skirts.
                  You have us watching
          from the dirt,
                  making us
          small again, small enough
          to fit under your skirts.
You sweep us together,
          tear down walls,
                  the homes we built for ourselves,
                  our children, {our egos}, our three legged dog,
          turn roadways into riverways,
                  pavement: tar—not the tar of your teeth;
                  water: we are all fluid.
 
You rush at us with miles long arms.
          At your center, you are calm:
 
                  Have us waiting for torrents to take us away.
                  You have us running,
                                       those that choose to run.
 
          I regale in your wispy leafed songs, your daring gusto
                                       to go where you please. I know, I am not
 
                                       the center
 
          of your attention. But I ride the regal dissonance of your pleats,
                    I plead not, I bleed not, I sit soundly
 
                                                    between cracks of sunlight.
 
You have me watching
                  just on the fringe of you, where if in the waters,
                                       I would drown because I cannot swim.
                                                    You have me watching single clouds
          ammonia, sulfur cotton balls defying a previously agreed upon trajectory,
                    These bits—of lace
from your petticoats remind me,
                                                               I am only human.
 
 
 
 
Tiffany Chaney is an artist and writer residing in North Carolina. She received a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing from Salem College in 2009, where she received the Lucy Bramlette Patterson award in 2008. Her works in poetry and fiction have appeared in Ophelia Street, Pedestal Magazine and The Saints’ Placenta, among others. Chaney recently completed her first poetry chapbook, Between Blue and Grey, and is seeking a publisher.
 
 
 
 
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