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Laurie wrote the following poem for the PEI portion
of CBC Radio's national Poetry Face-Off. This year's theme: "irresistible."
“Boys Like Girls Whose Hair Outweighs Their
Brain”
— Ana Graham, “Why Play Dumb?”
(Globe & Mail,
March 4, 2006)
Nine-year-old girl wisdom
in this morning’s Globe
and I think
gifted freckle-child
with your cute boy bob and eyes as old as Eve’s
you are smarter than I could ever hope to be
Sweet sixteen and bad boys
sugar on my tongue
riding in cars leaves me
with road rash lips
tumbleweed hair
back seat tattoos
crisscrossed across my back
A glance that starts at the ball field
ends in the backroom stacks
of the hometown rag
ink tendrils my nostrils
dust papers my skin
as lips chase leads
under my white India cotton blouse
by day
Mozart waltzes patterned proofs inside my head
metaphored schematics clutter margins and notebooks
and labyrinth scores run background noise
by night
field spins spill brain cells on grass
Lonesome Charlie and Baby Duck swing me by my braids
stars circle dangerously close to my horizon
as boys and cars and theorems track in and out of orbit
Boys presaged chaos theory
bumping trays in the cafeteria
led to hot September schoolyards
breezes waving through leaves in the trees above
as hands sculpted waves below
Boys danced me through high school
and university
the trick to let them believe they were leading
as my toes purpled and knees bruised
and I grew my hair to my waist
Later I learned to sleep
with boys who were almost smarter than me
and never with ones who had wives
I liked
Boys at the library
boys in the grocery store
boys beside me at the meeting table
their thighs tanned golden
smooth as an oaken banister
burnished in my palm
boys who have no fear
who won’t look away when eyes collide
brush my shoulder with their fingertips
drift my hair back from my cheek
and whisper in my ear
the car’s outside
boys who will
knife-dive off an edge
into a still pond with me
the slightest of ripples
as we slit open the water
fin our way down
til all sound recedes
but heartbeats
I breaststroke my way
back up
alone
wipe the droplets from my face
squeeze rivers from the strands of hair between my fingers
taut as a violin bow strung heavy with music
take the scissors
cut it
off
So gifted girl-child
you keep your hair short
right from the start
and know those boys
don’t stand a chance
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