Every winter Friday before dancing school my mother felt my hands, shaking her head as she pulled the white gloves of ladyhood over my icicle fingers. "Sit on them," she advised gently. So, in a straight-backed girl-chair facing the rigid boy-chairs across the waltz of the piano I sat on my numb hands fearful some little boy sweating the steps through cotton palms would discover he was clutching the shame of my ice-boned glove. My hands stayed frostbitten through those rituals of romance. And still in the winter months of life my hands turn to the season - twig knuckles creaking in the wind - as the ice of ladyhood gloves my fingers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA: 5. THE DANCING GIRL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON TO HORACE BUMSTEAD by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON STUDY FOR A GEOGRAPHICAL TRAIL; 1. SEATTLE by CLARENCE MAJOR SLEEPING TOGETHER by KATHERINE MANSFIELD |