Changeling

For two full years
she played house.

Buying drapes,
learning to cook,
entertaining relatives,
being the good wife.

An honest attempt
at being ordinary.
Two full years of sanity.
Feet firmly
planted in reality.

And then the itching began.
She started to dream again.

Her eyes would glaze over
as she stirred lentils over the stove.
And strange perfumes would
fill the kitchen.

She would
dream of elephants
and lotuses and skimpily
clad women bathing in
purple streams
in fuchsia forests.

She would dream of fame, name,
magazine articles on her.
The entrepreneur her refuses
to be domesticated.

She would dream on
the interstate, in malls,
while doing dishes.

Her chrysalis of fantasy.

Changing herself
in a cocoon of reveries,

The caterpillar housewife
turning slowly into the butterfly
she was fated to be.

She was back to
being mad
again.

And beautiful.