I found a scrap of a piece four years old and decided to work with it.
Fencing
There are soccer moms
And Little League moms.
I am a fencing mom.
Fencing is an elegant combination of
Ballet and thumb wrestling.
Competitors dance up and down
The electrified strip.
A pantomimed tango—
With sharp objects.
Fencers themselves are an odd mix
D&D geeks, feminists, and elitists
Rich kids bored with pony club.
Then there’s Katie--a poor kid
From aristocratic bloodlines,
Lucky to find a teacher
Who worked for free.
Beside the boys were cute.
There are conventions,
Vestiges of chivalric etiquette.
Salute before pretending to kill.
My daughter pulls on another persona
Along with her lamé.
The everyday Katie is an intelligent,
Beautiful, moody smart-ass,
You know, a 17-year-old girl.
When she steps onto the strip
She becomes
Driven, focused, relentless.
This Katie is thrilling because she is untouchable.
Even with her face covered
By a black mesh mask,
Her carriage tells me she’s wearing
Her Mona Lisa smirk.
“I’m holding a sword.
You might want to stop
Throwing your chest on it.”
Sometimes she will stand still as a cat and wait
Her opponent will expend his energy
On a feint that she doesn’t fall for.
Other times she is like a charging warrior princess
Whose ferocity causes strong men to cower.
She has just lost.
Even though she fenced beautifully,
Her opponent was nationally ranked.
Faster with a longer reach
And a lunge that covers acreage.
Even in defeat, she remains untouched.
She sips water and calculates.
She finds the chink in the armor.
An elbow swung wide
Allowing for an inside shot.
Katie has found that the kindest thing
To do for the divas is to help them
Mend their character flaws
By beating them.
Her next opponent,
An effete man with
A last name for a first name,
Actually whines,
“Geez, lady, it’s a sword,
Not a baseball bat.”
Saber can be painful. Stick to epée.
Or maybe yoga.
The mask comes off and she greets him
With an ingenuous, friendly smile
And he isn’t even allowed the luxury
Of hating her.