I Was Anne Boleyn

I felt the swing of the axe on my neck
Vilified for womanhood, for
Being born a little out of time
Tight corsets and layers of skirt not enough to keep me dancing

Rough hews of ship beneath soft leather boots
On oceans I only dream of now
Before the world tried to divide air
Salt and sea and this brain calls it home, too

I have never seen their shores but know their murky depths
This heart raises and falls with every swell
Like I did once
In the sun and the storms, too

I have more veins than I should
My blood branched like the trees I once stood with
Like ancient forests I swayed in the wind in
Where I left that body when I was ready, though its shell still stands somewhere

They all do, I’m sure
Every life still in here and out there like
Waiting for me to re-enter them
Waiting for the breath of a soul to rustle the leaves, I

Bring bark and sap into animation
I stop the slow rot of time

I do not fear death
A reinvention
Rather than somewhere to rest for eternity
This heart would rather skip like a stone in Lake Michigan

Than settle into stagnant puddles, into pavement
Into cities that are unfamiliar and they sewage beneath them
I don’t know what I believe in,
Both God and not

No man or man -like thing can temper my restless
Can chain my bones to one body, one set of memories

I blink my eyes open to ballrooms in
Green gilded sleeves and
Facetious consumption of wine they can’t replicate
Flirting with the end of all of it

Or to the deck rails, my hands gripped around them
Eyes soft on the sunset in the distance
The wind lifts my hair and falls on my shoulders, my neck
A woman on a ship is a curse, but

I feel anything other

I swing boring in this life and
Radical in others and
Someday I’ll return to something more illustrious
More luminous and story -focused

Where, perhaps, I am once again fighting something bigger than myself
Or, at least, living bigger
Where they write about what I achieve instead of only what comes after