SLAM!

"Dear Mr. Lincoln: 1860" 


         (In 1860, a plot to assassinate Lincoln on his way to his inauguration failed, because the president sneaked into Washington disguised as a frail woman.)


Despite spirals of time,
you make me grin and want to dance,
because you spun out of yourself,
clever, upright,
a lank, crystalline stalk,
to weave freedom from a paradox
with the splendor of a gladiolus.

During your glorious flight,
you dared to be a woman
with a vision supreme;
cuddling your yarn and literacy, you
straightened your skirt
and caused my defiant muse
to salute your propriety
and smirk at my past--at
a rebel's initiative of disguise--
when I sneaked out
to a teen-age party
dressed as my cousin Sam.
I find similarities between us:
a voracious producer
staging a new attitude as if a boy
or a frail woman, her hair in a bun,
fingering her shawl.

Your daring daintiness
in a starched gown reaches
to comfort me, still today,
and I know,
in your manly arm lies
my womanhood.