I am... pigtails freckles my step father's toy, warnings, 'don't tell' hands on my body mouth on my face tears for a first love who didn't love me crinolines starched in circles holding poodle skirts wide swoons over Elvis at Heartbreak Hotel, We Like Ike and polio shots step father's stench, arms binding me down i'm big now... you can't get me again tumbles into love a dozen times, maybe more the world around me changing, as Joan Baez sings out, Diamonds and Rust and the Washington Wall wept, too many lives late riding roughened seas, boat battened down, facing the storms trembling inside rain on my face not turning back all of these things, none of them, either hungry and wanting, but at home in my skin, some ghosts still lingering some routed out hands in a fist arms opened wide defined