Women Dancing with Babies on their Hips
Rent from DeepDyve- Women Dancing with Babies on their Hips
We had travelled to that old coast, six hours to New Bern, the long ferry from Cedar Island to Ocracoke and then to Roanoke where Manteo, for love of the glittering English, killed Wanchese, and so began, even from within, that long, slow clearing.
And that night, tourists sick of the bloody ending of our beginning, we went for beer and music on the deck of the Jolly Roger where in the starry distance lighthouses stayed the blown shoals of islands like paperweights.
It was there we saw them, their separate bodies swaying among the couples coupling on the dance floor, two women, alone, dancing with babies on their hips, weaving in and through, stitching up the random piece-goods of the night.
They were banners. Their hair starfish lit. Their faces the blossomy bright shock of sand dollars when you find them whole.
How useless our wondering the whereabouts of their men, imagining them away, some war they did not belong in, or too late back from the shrimping boat, and tired, to join them here. These women, their strong lovely hips dipping and cresting, their babies’ heads flung back in a whirl of toothless laughter, loving the lone ride, their wild, dumb entry into the world. [End Page 129]
Cathy Smith Bowers was born and reared in the small mill town of Lancaster, South Carolina. Her poems have appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review. She is the author of four collections of poetry: The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas, Traveling in Time of Danger, A Book of Minutes, and The Candle I Hold Up To See You, and is the current Poet Laureate of the state of North Carolina.
Footnotes
Ed. Note: This poem was originally published in Traveling in Time of Danger (Iris Press) and is reprinted here courtesy of the author.
