Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

Quiet Revolution (Connie)
by Dwana Jean

THirty-SIXth
Contest
SECOND Place

Every little girl needs a patron saint
And yours gave you keys to the future:
Round keys that spelled a jumbled alphabet
And a bell that chimed its joy
At the edge
Of each
Set margin.

Comic books gave way to office dreams,
Roller skates languished
As you typed imaginary memos,
And the whir of adding machines spoke an incantation to your soul --
A promise of high heels and tailored suits,
Of nylon-clad legs swishing “Good morning!” to passers-by.

You learned early that men might define the world,
But women are the authors of reality,
So you wrote your destiny
On crisp white cotton bond paper,
And placed it in a hope chest
Filled with the tools of your future self
While you prepared for a world that did not yet know
You were exactly who they needed --
A quiet girl who heard music in the tut-tut of electric typewriters,
A young woman with cat-eyes and pretty fingers that danced
Down the Soul Train-line of letters and numbers.

There are no monuments to women who came to sit
At the tables their mothers once served,
Who blazed Afro Sheen™-scented trails
Then came home to feed husbands and kiss bruised knees.
In this revolution, no bras were burned
And dinner was always on time.

About the Author

Dwana Jean has a BA in Communication Arts. She has written for national public health organizations and consumer advocacy groups. She lives in Maryland with her sweet, nerdy husband of 31 years. She makes a bomb bread pudding.