JEN SCHNEIDER
Of Rules (and Rulers)
my friend
believed rules
were meant to be broken
and I’d always known
it was she who’d break the ruling standards –
she’d break bark
like lifeguards barked orders.
she was the one who insisted
we walk the runway of seaweed,
sticks, sand, and stones,
of scorched soles and souls that scorn,
and, mostly, pebbles and pockets turned inside out.
the laundry machine not yet a common household good.
Lycra is as much a statement as a station
for weighing rules and breaking rulers
as striking a pose.
Who cares if we are censored,
she’d said, we’ve got a right to make
sense of our own days,
without ever truly calculating,
contemplating, or caring for the measurements
of her decision-making --
It’s as hot as a damn oven
and I’m tired of cooking, she’d explain to Gods
of sea and standing-room-only beaches,
then snap her fingers – middle
and thumb graced pointer as well as the elastic
of the fabric that hugged her thigh bone,
snippety snap,
and we’d be off –
all cameras on.
The local beaches
as populated as a Hollywood red carpet.
We left our measuring cups in the kitchen.
We were hot
and simply wanted to drink
in summer, in cut offs and curves.
We surfed as whistles blew smoke --
Ladies, the lifeguards would warn
as if we were in danger, when in reality it was
us the world was scared of.
At first, we wouldn’t listen
but even the most spirited of us
understood that resistance had limits
and rules, even those meant to be broken,
often result
in arrested developments.
Arrest us!
my friend would laugh
as officers measured the distance between
fabric and bone.
even as they removed us, suits on,
my friend remained persistent --
We’ll be back, she’d say
to britches and knobby knees.
We waved as we retreated,
testing waves from dry land,
but expect nothing,
and didn’t care if anyone was still watching
Eyes on I! Eyes on the sky!
Rules for fools!
She’d giggle through her words.
It’s an elementary attitude, she’d exclaim.
like i before e except after c,
there are always exceptions.
Plus,
the sea is infinitely more welcoming than the sand.
After processing and making payment,
she’d return, ready to rule whatever beach was open,
with notes and questions,
drafted in six-inch segments, for the censor man
Is the distance between knee and suit more or less than the desire to control?
Are rules measured in inches or feet?
Does fabric stretch as easily as censorship?
What’s so alarming about a bare thigh outside of the kitchen?
Is a woman’s wave more or less discerning than that of the ocean at high tide?
Who shall bear the weight of change of bare skin remains a metric of amusement.
Notes from my friend’s arraignment/detainment/containment
(1920s swimsuit laws initiate a wave of excitement) –
Resist and desist share all but one letter.
We’re told to mind our P’s and Q’s, so I do.
Persist, simply resist with an added consonant.
My fashion choices are subject to neither.
They are simply the output
and outcome of my own my singular desire
to connect.
If you do not like what you see, take up bird watching.
Stretch stockings to secure the plummeting stock market’s abdomen.
Or even better dig a hole in sand and study hermit crabs.
Please do not prevent me from seducing play.
It’s my way of releasing steam.
Of connecting beyond traditional seams.
The kitchen’s hot this time of year
Jen Schneider is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces in and around Philadelphia. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate.