Wordle Poem 7

A creative experiment in which I (quickly) write a poem using the words from that day's Wordle entry.

Lion in Winter

From the age of five to about fifteen I loved the feeling of figure skating. What I refused to cultivate in technical skill, I made up for in grace. Long, limber legs and charisma come in awfully handy when winning over judges. I say awfully because my nemesis (we’ll call her The Lion) would roar about the injustice when I boxed her out of third place. The thing is, her posture was iconically terrible. She looked like one of those rescue hooks you use to pull people out of swimming pools—her head and shoulders arriving first, no matter what her feet were up to. Is it my fault I was a joy to watch while phoning in the technical elements she’d worked so hard to master? Yes, I made up my routines on the fly. But I flew—and that’s what I was there to do. The Lion’s mother didn’t like me either. She’d shepherd her daughter from the bulletin board where our scores were posted, eyes averted, a consoling arm around The Lion’s waist. I would tell my own mother about it from the passenger seat of our Jeep Wagoneer, when she pulled up at the rink later to take me home.