Letter to John Upon Returning to Hilton Head
/Bridget Gage-Dixon
Time seems to have stalled here, Spanish moss still reaches down from branches, the saltwater is still warm against my skin, and all the houses continue to stubbornly disguise themselves. As I peddle the thin paths cut through the trees, I become the girl I was so long ago, the one too long ignored, willing to break her body against the sharp edges of a forbidden boy. This hardly helps.
I ride these paths now following my own fourteen year old. Her spine curves cleanly beneath skin that shines with beads of salty water. She is stronger than I was, does not seem susceptible to boys whose breath is a brilliant mix of Michelob and Marlboros. She hasn’t yet sidled herself up against a boy eager to consume her innocence, hasn’t eagerly offered it up.
I’ve wondered often where you are now, if time has tempered your radiance. If, like me, your waist has thickened, if your spirit’s grown the thin shield the years have constructed over mine. You were the boy I warn my daughter about, all desire, using language like a lasso, your will an alluring noose I willingly slid myself into.
Bridget Gage-Dixon has had a life-long love affair with poetry that began with rewriting nursery rhymes and fairytales. She progressed to having her poems included in Poet Lore, Inkwell, The Cortland Review, and several other journals. She lives in New Jersey where she teaches and dotes on her grandchildren.
