Her carapace, her lacquered wrapper,
that red wooden coat protected so well
she scarcely felt its stiffness or heft

though she could skip, run, move at all.
Locked into the coat she would lean on a railing
far from the schoolyard's ropes & swings, scan

the clouds for geese and swans, migrating shawls,
any shape whose rotation & drifts
she could set to music as if she herself danced.

But like all wood, the coat began to crack and rot.
So she entered the borders of tautly-edged shadows;
rolled silence to a carpet & hid in its folds.

One day a neighbor was stunned to find her
groping for gaps & slits, any openings at all,
so desiring to dance those steps never learned

she didn't care if her flailing arms
resembled the wings of a broken swan,
how her clumsy, too rapid spins & turns
made even the clouds burst out laughing.