Today I ran in just my jog bra for the first time since I last gave birth.
It was warm out
but not too warm;
I just wanted to feel my skin meet the sun.
twisted with each step like a wet rag being rung.
Such are the signs of having spent 75 weeks of my life
as the first home of two humans.
My right knee wanted to tell me how I'd better not hike
with my 3-year-old strapped to my back anymore.
I told it I would listen tenderly to its opinions while we ran.
There is something pure
and forgiving
and loving in locomotion.
So when the woman walking the short dog
shot me disparaging, star-thistled looks
I tossed them over my shoulder
and left them in my wake.
(Oh, the rancor we feel towards the woman who decides to fully inhabit her body)
There are parts of me that don't work as well anymore
and parts of me that work better.
My heart for one,
is a thick and brilliantly calloused organ
with its vacancy sign always lit a cherry red in welcome.
And my quadriceps continually beg me to let them stretch out long and animal-like
on never-ending roads.
They convince me I am seven again,
with pig tails streaming behind my head.
So I push this earnest body into the air,
like a bow bent to spring the arrow,
and enjoy every bit
of every step
of my no-longer-young torso
shining in the sun.
