Anything

When I was small, you told me
I could be anything.
It wasn’t true, but it was good of you
to say, and help me believe
for a moment, so the world would
feel like windows and doors unlocked,
thrown open to strange vistas
and mysteries, so that I would
waltz across thresholds, fearless
and unfettered. And I did. And I fell
up into the sky, in love with starlings
and clouds, swifts and soft rain.

When I was a youth, the guidance
counselor told me I shouldn’t
want to be a psychiatrist
because I would have to learn
Latin, and my English teacher
Mr. Hamilton declared that I was not
college material. What kind then,
I worried, what kind of material
am I? And you said, You are soft
velvets and vibrant silks. That man
is only a man behind a curtain.
Pay attention to me: You can
be anything. It still wasn’t true,
but still so good of you
to say, and to help me believe it
in the face of my education
about “No.”

And in all of the time
I was doing what I believed
I should do, so that later
I could be anything,
I told you this was
the anything that I wanted
to be. It wasn’t true.
I was only picking up shiny
objects that crossed my path,
tokens that gave me
access to narrow doors
into the world of men
making machines, messes,
and money, because in an odd
twist of timing, it became
the right thing to let a woman
advance—a little, not too much,
just enough; a Goldilocks
moment of compromise
where I gazed out the closed
windows from inside, upstairs,
dreaming of escaping into sky. 

And now, I am old,
and you are gone,
and the men are still
in charge from behind
the curtain, but they have
decided I don’t matter
anymore, and I can go ahead
and be a poet and write
in questionable rhythm
to the percussion and strings
that have been playing
in my heart and head
this whole time.
And when my pen
presses on paper,
I can be anything.