Lucinda Madsen
She towers tall above the hammocked peace,
her labyrinth branches piercing through the sky
in claim. In sapling youth, she had to vie
for space to stretch her limbs out first and seize
the light to muscle down. Now she can cease
the hustle. Now her waist grows thick, the ply
of flesh gone strong and steady. And why sigh
over bygone days? Skin in prime is creased
and storied, kissed a thousand thousand times
by sun and wind. The whorls of wrinkle tell
of skin split on sidewalks, of winks and hands
clasping hands. Simply put, you are sublime.
Put on the swimsuit, push off the pool wall,
let swirl your dear cloud of hair, strand by strand.
Lucinda Madsen is a sophomore studying Environmental Engineering. She is a lapsed linguistics nerd, an aspiring birder, and a current poet.
