Davi Walders
I am the mother of two daughters. I have always wanted them to have to face less discrimination that I did. (Before it was made illegal, I was forced to leave teaching due to pregnancy and lost health and retirement benefits. This led to a long and costly law suit which was finally settled.) Because of my personal experience, I have committed my professional life to issues of gender, serving on the Human Rights Commission of Montgomery County, MD and its Employment Discrimination Panel. I also take great pleasure in writing on gender issues.
Dancing at the Driskill
"I need to know who lays claim to my past
Who, of all those I was?"
All Our Yesterdays, Jorge Luis Borges
Beyond beveled doors, light splashes
rainbows on a ballroom floor. Chandeliers
glitter like rhinestones looped above
bare shoulders. Here where taffeta
once begged nothing more than young
breasts and a bow, glazed floors still
call for the touch of dyed-to-match
pumps, the click of springolator heels.
She peeks and wanders, tapping limestone
dressed bricks, letting her fingers
trace carved letters on the Texas State
Society plaque. Feet that have walked
night-lit halls, lecture rooms
and hearing rooms print their own
topography in burgundy plush. Bones
of an immigrant's daughter lean
against gold-leaf columns. Her history
stretches beyond her own geography.
All that she is, she was. All that
she was remains here in the hotel
between the balcony and the ballroom,
the ladies' arch and the rose-trellised
bathroom. Here where girls kissed
Kleenex and tucked mascara wands
into purses scented with l'Heure Bleue,
here where dreams floated from saxes
and the Platters, where the future spread
like a snowy runner before a bride.
Now powder room irises bloom along
a lavender wall. Bannisters glisten.
Noon blinks in silence. The gatherer
lets light drape her shoulders, slips
her arm into memory. This is, after all,
after decades, where the dancing began.
This is, after all, a woman come to reclaim
the dance and the dancing not yet done.
Before
The heat served well that last summer
of my androgyny, the last summer before
air-conditioning and green TV screens,
before my breasts swelled and I bled.
That last summer the heat curled around
me, carrying me to the safety of shadows
and space, a place Cinderella could not
erase. That last summer I could out- throw
the boys, the South boiled between venetian
blinds, ironed prison stripes across my body,
steamed my crumpled sheets, slicing me awake.
Like an old dog, it lumbered with me
to the aqua fridge where we stared at clouds
of cold billowing around the milk jug.
Blue plastic glass filled, peanut butter
smeared on soft white Wonder Bread,
we let the screen door slam, took breakfast
in the grass. Under the rambler's eaves,
jellied bread on one knee, cold blue
plastic on the other, we watched drops
of moisture condense and roll to join the dew.
There we sat, the heat and I, waiting
for the day and whoever came along.
The heat held other hostages--my mother
behind the Hoover, beating at beige shag
tufts that wilted as soon as the dancing
dust resettled. My sister's cries floated
above the hum, cutting into the quiet
beside the house, like the scaly rash
that scorched her body patchy red.
All day long the heat bore them down
and tired them of me, so I roamed
free the last summer of my androgyny.
Boys named Medford, Sanford, girls called
Dallas and Dana, someone always slipped
from other houses where mothers gave up
on children, dust, everything but fantasies
in the heat. Whistles, soft and shrill,
rose from oleander and crepe myrtle
like bird calls. The signal to abandon
the Hoover, the house, the blue glass
already invaded by ants, for my bike.
We met at the corner, whoever was able,
and rode three abreast, our tires sinking
into already melting tar. We pedaled hard
to gather speed, to make a breeze
on our way to the gathering tree.
The giant mimosa waited, gnarled arms
and long leaves like green caterpillars
brushing the ground. Hidden in her lap,
we straddled the branches between peach
feather flowers and watched the haze
hover over the blossom fuzz. Laughing,
legs swinging, we glared straight up
and dared the sun to blind the young.
Through dazzling blue, the heat rolled
ahead and beckoned us towards the bayou.
Silver bike metal seared our legs.
Sweat soaked halters, faces, hands.
Palms turned black, smelled like grips
melting on our handle bars.
Pushing pedals hard, we bumped along
dirt ruts, our dust rising, swallowing
flat, shimmering streets, hiding us
in the fields. Until someone stopped.
Bikes clattered to the ground, crushing
poke weeds, scattering Queen Anne's lace
into grey fuzz. Blackberries, lush and hot
in the sun, lured us barefoot into thickets.
We foraged, plunging sweet blackness,
soft as the quail eggs our feet crushed,
into mouths and pockets. Warm berries
exploded, mixed with blood their thorns
drew, sweetening the wounds of victory
the last summer of my androgyny.
Scratched and stained, blood and juice
crusting on our legs, we plunged further
until the clay turned spongy soft beneath
our feet. Tall pin oaks guarded our forbidden
city, the bayou that beckoned us daily.
Shadows from the pointed leaves hushed echoes
of parental warnings‑‑‑rushing water, slippery
banks, water moccasins, the narrow trestle,
trains without warning whistles, hobos who
jumped, set up camp, and stalked children
like us. Danger darted leaf to leaf, cicadas
screamed in the heat in our sacred place.
We searched among the trees for signs
of bearded bums with tattered coats
and squinting eyes that filled our dreams.
Once we found a knife, never more than ashes,
yet nightly we peopled starless skies
and our flickering lids with steel grey
men who slept faceless in the shadows
of our sacred city. Red clay oozed
between our toes as we slid down the banks
to the ledge just above the water's edge.
Water moccasins coiled like Benin baskets
on rocks, their white tongues flicking
at dragon flies skimming the sun-lit current.
Disappearing as mysteriously as they came,
the moccasins lay undisturbed by sticks
we threw to gauge the current floating
around the bayou's curve. Scrambling up
the bank to the trestle, we took our seats
and let our legs dangle from splintered
two-by-four's. Bottle caps and broken
green glass beckoned. Sometimes we tossed
at a moccasin, sometimes just to see
who could throw the farthest, forgetting
our arguments as afternoon shadows played
on the reddish water below. The track
glistened at our backs. A hush fell.
The stillness swelled with anticipation.
Listening for a whistle, a shudder, a signal,
we waited for the rushing train to break
our reverie, test our bravery. The crown
of our day, the Southern Express, rocketing
through cotton fields and rice paddies,
shooting immutably towards us. "I heard it,"
"No you didn't," "I felt it," "Shh, you did
not." Whispers broke the wait, but still
we sat, daring each other, until the last
possible moment when the glimmering silver
engine hurtled the distant bend in the bayou.
Only then did we bolt, jumping barefoot,
plank to burning plank across the trestle
onto the slippery bank into pin oak shadows.
The two o'clock roared by, car after car
threatening to suck us into the wake. Sound
and light screamed in a mercury blur. Wind
blew us to the ground, threatening never to end
until it did. Suddenly, the afternoon was again
what it had been‑‑‑shimmering heat, shadows
and space. We biked home slowly, toes dragging
in the dust. Under the east eaves, we ate
American cheese, nibbling circles in the center
of orange squares, watching sheets bleach crisp
on the clothesline. Sweating, we told tales
of unseen passengers who sat in cool blue
velvet seats on the two o'clock express
to New Orleans. Until we had to set the table.
I did not love them then nor do I now---those
summers heavy with Spanish moss, spongy banks
and sluggish currents, the only break the shriek
of the Southern Express. That last summer my
dreams tired of trestles and bums, began
to make love to cities I would later know.
But the heat worried not as it patiently
wrought a tapestry of blackberries, bayous
and ribbon of tar-baked streets around
my heart. Softly, it cradled me in shadows
and space and carved a place of possibility
before the last summer days of my androgyny.
Davi Walders' poetry and prose have appeared in more than 200 anthologies and journals, including The American Scholar, JAMA, Ms Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Seneca Review, Lonely Planet, Travelers’ Tales, and elsewhere. She developed and directs the Vital Signs Writing Project at NIH in Bethesda, MD which was funded for three years by The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry. She received Greater Washington Hadassah’s Myrtle Wreath Award for the Project which was featured in JAMA and other publications. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, a Puffin Foundation Grant, a Maryland State Artist Grant in Poetry, a Luce Foundation Grant, and fellowships to Ragdale Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been choreographed and performed in NYC and elsewhere, read by Garrison Keillor on Writer’s Almanac, and nominated for Pushcart Prizes.