The Bid -- a poem

Some times, images and stories come fully formed as revelations in short stories, or as longer evolutions in novels, or in brief glimpses in poems. I've learned to write them as they come...  Mostly, I'm drawn to short stories and novels these days, but my writing will always be rooted in poetry.  I am free to play there. 

While I was in the process of creating a new character for my current WIP (work in progress), this poem presented itself to me as a way in...  I thought it was worth saving.

The Bid

by Larry D. Sweazy

Feet left old west for new west

The past discarded anxiously 

On the thin muddy banks of the Ohio

She could have danced circles

On the lazy willow canopies

With joy, fear, and loathing, but

Duty was calm and deeply mired

On a drought-ridden paddle

Wheel, lost to expected manners,

Passion and the lure of adventure

Fallen expectations quickly drowned--

All that mattered was survival,

A new life, longing to be

Lived, breathed, and told again

Her story had started with a cry.