Ribbon Roping

I bet the thing you are missing most about the Olympics

 are those flexible girls twirling leftover New Year's Eve decorations. 

 I know I am.

As a little girl,

I can remember flinging myself around the living room 

in the flouncy white slip that I usually only wore on Sundays.

I always imagined that I looked as graceful as these

lithe little ribbon skippers.

In fact, I crashed into the furniture with regularity

and never went a day without a scabby patch or giant bruise

on my skinny knobby legs.

I wore them like olympic medals.


 

This poor girl obviously never had anyone to jump rope with.

But she invented her own little game 

and by Jiminy,

it took her all the way to the Olympics! 

I never did use a ball in my childhood routines.

My brothers would have killed me for using their good basketball 

and besides, it was usually a little on the flat side from the bullhead stickers

picked up on the dirt court where they shot baskets 

into the net nailed to the side of the barn.

If I'd only had a leotard
I could have been a contender.