Eleven

(Kathy Korniloff)
Eleven years old when Janis Joplin died
It was a time in her life full of feminine pride
A Wrinkle in Time and The Wind in the Willows
Hiding behind the summer clothes that billowed
On the line
With a head full of music and playful heart
With her two best friends you couldn't tear them apart
Reading notes and measures and Harriet the Spy
King of the mountain and a big blue sky
So open wide
Running like a girl
You go sailing past my window chased by tracers of the sun
Running like a girl
Meet me in the underbrush remember solid ground we touched
In our forested fortresses
Growing up fast on the edge of a storm
There was a peace to keep, a job to perform
Learning well how to settle into so polite
Quietly there by a TV light
So close inside
Proud and stoic with a sense of duty
No one there to notice her developing beauty
if they could have listened there was no mistaking
The dissonent sound of a young heart breaking
Open wide
Watching girlfriends lining up one by one
To pledge allegiance to the women they would soon become
They all quit sports and got a D in math
And you began to follow a narrow path
Once open wide
Running like a girl
You go sailing past my window blazing trails against the wind
Out into this world
Finding out about your difference I will give you love's assistance
Now that I am aware of you
I was stranded outside and I couldn't speak
Needed a soothing brain balm just to get through the week
I was feeling amputated from my neck to my shoes
And the gulf between my voice and my heart was ooh
So far and wide
When I woke from this dream I was thinking of you
How you've always known just what to do
With your skinny brown legs and your face to the sun
Nothing you've known has ever come undone
Heart open wide
Running like a girl
Tearing up my neighborhood under a big blue sky
Running like a girl
Meet me in the underbrush remember solid ground we touched