Modesty is a lie. -- Maya Angelou ?She is a girly girl born with a beautiful pelvisLiving in New Orleans, two feet, two breasts,Eight children, curvaceous and cute, she turnsHeads everyday, social works to pay the bills,Whispers to God. Shes in her 40s when GodWhispers back, that bewildering, 3rd generation,Stage 2, pummeling, Black woman news. Its$5000 a month to stay alive. She loses Ta-tas,Job, car, house. The long scar on her chest runsHorizontal with the horizon. She sews her eyesDown its back. A hot air balloon lifts her throughChemotherapy, beyond despair, arriving in Biloxi.Somewhere along the road to 50 she overhearsThat the pelvis is what makes us human.Her mother hands over black on black sneakersWith an ancestral silver toe and hip silver swoosh.Her grandmother loans her a pair of loudLime green, South African, Balega socks.?Hit the road daughter. The girly girl knowsShe doesnt need breasts to walk, or breastsTo be a girly girl, with both hands she raisesHer blouse over her head. The sun paintsHer chest the same shade of girl that it didForty years before when she was just 8 and justAn unknown girl on a beach, topless, with breastsStill sleeping in the bones curl just below herClavicle. When a Black woman decides toWalk topless for 1034 miles things get aligned.Ears line up over shoulders. Shoulders overHips. Hips over knees. Her spine is soonShot out of a cannon just like the 1850 InsomniacHarriet, her nipples calibrating due north andFreedom instead of sleep. When a Black womanMakes up her mind to walk topless for 1034 miles,A film crew can change their mind but a daughtersWitnessing eyes are irreversible. MadelinesEight-year-old breasts are still in the deep sleepOf girlhood when they leave, just like Retro girlyGirl back on the beach. She sets sail from BiloxiOn April 30. Her ghost nipples spin as dualCompass. Five miles an hour, eight hours a day,For sixty days. Topless in the sun and the drivingRain. The Republics electronic Book of Faces hearsThe news and goes neon. 10,000,000 eyes dial in.The first of twelve police cars stop her. She smilesAnd holds a class in indecent exposure along the sideOf the road. There are no Toni Morrison benchesTo hold them so they stand. Resolution: Its notIllegal for her shirt to be off if her nipples are only Ghosts, following overhead but not really there.On the police car radio NPR is interviewingJohn Napier, paleontologist. The topic is walking.As the policemen finish up their Selfie with theTopless woman, who can still turn a head, theyDo not hear the paleontologist say, HumanWalking is unique. The body, step by step, teetersOn the edge of catastrophe. The mother-daughterTeam is back on the road. The girly girl has 100Ligaments in each of her feet. Her transverse archIs the major weight-bearing bridge in her body.Her Achilles is her most critical tendon, running fromHer calf muscle to the back of her heel, helping herPush off with her toes and propel her body towardSenators and marble halls and the back of MadelinesStroller. With each step she takes a new beauty shopIs under new Construction. This one will not beDesigned & Assembled by the Chairman of the BoardOf Ta-tas. She moves one foot in front of the other.Highway 29, Highway 1, The Jeff Davis highway,The Warren Abernathy road, the Blue Star highway,The monument to the signer of the Declaration ofIndependence in Georgia, the Indian mounds ofNorth Carolina. The topless girly girl keeps an eyeOut for the June Jordan Expressway. The Audre LordeHighway. The Gilda Radner overpass. The 7th of 12Police cars pulls up alongside Madelines stroller. InEach new jurisdiction the men and women in blueWant to have a word with her, want to survey theTopography of her chest, want answers shes patientlyAlready given seven times before, want to make sureThere is no indecent exposure taking place on theJeff Davis Highway north. Another class on the sameTopic is held. Over and again the girly girl explainsThat wanting to live is legal in every state.For 60 days the sneering breathtaking rocky roadExhaust of 18 wheelers coats her mouth. ThroughDust tar and fumes she passes Used Car Lots,Daydreaming of driving the rest of the way in aCanary yellow Mustang, convertible. There areStrip Malls, Mexican restaurants, neon motel signsAdvertising 20 dollar-a-Night Rooms, and 19Holy ghost praise houses leaning in with tambourine.The handmaidens of 40, 290 women take turnsRubbing her legs down every night. Mother andMadeline munch on 5 pounds of peaches, 4 poundsOf plums, they talk about school and family and howDifferent the rain feels when you cannot run from it.The mother-daughter train stops to read historicalMarkers from Biloxi to Washington DC. The womanWho has been known to turn a head wants MadelineTo know how the world was made and how it canBe made differently. She does not drink enough water.Its April, Its May, Its June. The pavement meltsBeneath their feet. The asphalt doesnt care that sheDoesnt have breasts, doesnt care that Madeline is8, the blisters, callus feet, the inside of her palms growStones, are bloody. She keeps pushing Madelines tinySleeping breasts on up the road. Its a tar beach voyage.And Madeline will not be next. The ghosts of 40,290Dead women whisper that they have voted to take theirTops off too. Solidarity forever. Mother and daughterEat Little Debbie pies and suck on firecracker popsiclesUntil their lips are red, white, and blue. StrangersFollowing them on the Republics electronic Book of FacesPull up alongside for Selfies. They deposit small tubsOf watermelon, a box of KFC, a foil bag of Chick-fil-A,Another woman drops off a homemade plate made fromHer own dinner pots. The gravel on the road hitchhikesA ride inside their shoes. The pommeling rain turns theJeff Davis highway into a sliding mud pit of summerQuicksand. The girly girls breastplate, complete withHorizon scar, has been staring back at the sun and theRain for 45 uncommon days. What does the world seeWhen a Black woman accustomed to being a womanAnd turning heads takes off her top and walks 1034Miles across America up a highway named for thePresident of the Confederacy? A woman teeteringOn the edge of catastrophe? A girly girl with herMissing ghost nipples now turned tuning forks turnedToward freedom? She is a woman they cannot arrestFor not having what they believe she should haveIn order to be called a woman? The burning summerRain sizzles on the hot asphalt. The sun bakes theirTwo backs into a portrait of two thirsty MarigoldsClimbing. A truck door swings open by mistake hittingThe girly girl as it passes. Pitch and roll girly girl. GetUp. A woman who has refused her own catastropheIs walking across America with her daughter. PoliceCar no. 12 arrives. Madeline is asleep. Why dontThey talk to each other on their blue-way radios?Cant someone dispatch the update? A Black womanWalking topless across America is not illegal. The girlyGirls pelvis evolved 1.9 million years ago.This noble Soldered saddle of bones is what makes us stand upright.Helps us change direction, spin, swivel, adjust, reach,Reconfigure, when we find we need to march on andNot crumble. The long column of our human bodyRequires the marvel of the pelvis to conduct whenAll else fails. The missing Ta-tas are not what matter.The pelvis matters. The dead women of the ChorusOf Breast Cancer matter. God finding the girly girlOn the beach and whispering Go Topless in her earMatters. Her mind is 1034 miles away on the marbleSteps of Congress waiting for the rest of her to arrive.Dear Senator ______, you dont know me but my pelvis is 1.9 million years old and 60, 290 women with pelvises just like mine received a new breast cancer diagnosis in 2015 and 40, 290 died of the disease. I would like a minute of your time. I did not fly here. My testimony was not subpoenaed. I am not the kind of woman to bare all but I have walked topless to show what I will not hide.When her breasts were cut away she decidedTo travel light. She packed nothing of excess.Only essentials. Firecracker popsicles. Peaches.Intact Pelvis. Sweet Oil of Madeline. Three changesOf clothing. A cell phone. A Stroller. And herDaily Dear God. Her prayers fueled by the powerOf electrolytes and the salt and pepper kindnessStrangers. In the blazing summer sun the sweetGeorgia peaches go down easy in the warmthOf mother and daughter mouths. You can stillBe alive without your breasts. Im still beautiful.The girly girl proclaims. Certainly, no less a woman.The woman who can still turn a head is showingThe world what a womans body looks like whenWar has been declared. The look of more thanCatastrophe. How the curve of the human spineWill absorb the sad shock of news it did not wantTo hear. The magic of Bipedal locomotion + strongKnees when we stand it up then hold out our armsAnd say Walk. The breast-less body in full sail,Moving the wheels of the determined mind. Theorchestra of the pelvis singing from the HymnalOf Courage, page 24. What it means to be womanAnd opening a new beauty shop without permit,License, or permission. The birthday sunrise of theGirly girl arrives. Its June 30th. She pushes MadelinesStroller past Quantico, the Pentagon, the 14th StreetBridge. The steps of the Capitol see her. MadelineStands up. Senator, thank you for seeing me.Popsicle? Peach? What say you about a cure?Nikky Finney has written four books of poetry, including Head Off & Split, for which she won the 2011 National Book Award. She wrote this original piece for the 2016 espnW Women + Sports Summit.Air Max 90 Black Buy . - NASCAR announced a 33-race schedule for the 2014 Nationwide Series with virtually no changes from this years slate. Air Max 90 Ultra SE Black White . President of baseball operations Larry Beinfest was fired Friday after 12 years with the Marlins. The move came as the team neared the end of its third consecutive last-place season in the NL East. http://www.outletairmax90cheap.com/outlet-air-max-90-leather-white-cheap.html . Nathan MacKinnon, Jamie McGinn and Jan Hejda also scored for the Avalanche, who won despite being outshot 38-23. MacKinnons goal, also on the power play, came with just over a minute remaining. Air Max 90 Womens Outlet . Lack made 20 saves for his third shutout of the season as the Canucks blanked the St. Louis Blues 1-0 in the first post-Olympic game for both teams night. Air Max 90 Leather Iron Bronze . Still, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke thought taking him out before the fifth inning was an unusual move. "Im looking up at the board and hes got two hits given up and one run, and Im taking him out after the fourth inning," Roenicke said.LONDON -- Andy Murray?will take on Novak Djokovic in the World Tour final on Sunday.The two best players in the world will compete in a straight shootout for the year-end No. 1 ranking in the championship match at the O2 Arena.Seems like a movie story scenario. Its a script, Djokovic said. A romance Ill call it. Bromance, let me be correct.He added: Im really privileged and honored to be part of history tomorrow with Andy. Weve known each other for many years. This is one of the biggest matches we will ever play against each other, so lets enjoy it.In their respective semifinals, Djokovic enjoyed a 6-1, 6-1 blowout against a gassed Kei Nishikori, who was 1-2 in three round-robin matches; Murrays knuckles were bleeding toward the end of a marathon 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (9) win over Milos Raonic in the earlier match.It was a career-best 23rd straight win for Murray, who isnt letting go of the No. 1 ranking without a fight. He waited seven years and 82 days to obtain the ranking since first reaching No. 2 in August 2009.After reaching his first season-ending final, Murray needed 10 minutes in the ice bath for a second time this week.He had already broken the record for the longest three-set match in Tour finals history on Wednesday, a win over Nishikori that went 3 hours, 20 minutes. The semifinal win over Raonic lasted 3 hours, 38 minutes.Tired, Murray said, summing up his feelings after a 77th victory from 86 matches in 2016. Ive played so much tennis the last few months. Some long matches this week. Ill just give it my best tomorrow. Its gonna be tough.The second and third sets against Raonic had each gone 80 minutes. Murray eventually took his third-match point in an epic, third-set tiebreaker.I had to fight very hard to get over the line, Murray said. I was broken twice serving for the match. That was frustrating, but it was a pretty amazing tiebreaker. There were some great points. I just managed to get the break in the end.That was one of the harder matches Ive played. Three-set matches are never normally this long. I dont expect that, playing someone with a serve like Milos. But there were so many long games and long points.Djokovic, who had already benefited from an extra days rest, finished his job in just 66 minutes with ruthless efficiency -- the most drama in the match occurred when a spectator tried to run on the court.Nishikoris serve was broken six times, with Djokovic makking just 12 unforced errors compared to 24 by the Japanese player.ddddddddddddThe crowd erupted every time Nishikori managed to hold his serve. He looked far less elated with his efforts and trudged off court with his head bowed when it was all over.I started off very well, pretty much executed everything tactically that I planned to do before the match, Djokovic said. Last couple of matches have been pretty much flawless.But it was a battle from the first game for Murray. Raonic won 89 percent of points on his first serve in the first set, having broken the Scot in the 11th game and closed it out in 58 minutes.Murray gave a sarcastic thumbs-up to his team when he retreated to his chair. Seemingly rattled by an earlier time violation at 4-4, he gave chair umpire Damien Dumusois a verbal volley.You gave me a warning, but you didnt give him a warning, he said, turning to the umpire, with whom he has had a couple of other arguments in 2016.Dumusois was the umpire who accused Murray of having no respect in a Monte Carlo semifinal defeat to Rafael Nadal. Murray had lofted a ball toward he umpire -- he was frustrated that Dumusois did not give Nadal a warning for going over the allotted 25 seconds between points.Murray also volleyed a ball with his foot toward Dumusois chair in a Cincinnati semifinal against Raonic.The Scot managed to shake off the incident here, just when Raonic looked to have him on the rocks when he broke for 2-1 in the second set. Murray had slumped down in his chair but burst back to life by breaking to love and letting out a roar with a fist pump.Murray, who had a much easier time beating Raonic in straights in the Wimbledon final, then edged a tiebreaker to level the match.Raonic unexpectedly gifted Murray two breaks, and two chances to serve out the win in the decider, but Murray tightened up and failed to take either.Another tiebreaker was needed to separate these two. Raonic saved two match points and then failed to take one of his own, but he couldnt deny Murray a third time.I have to be proud that I finished the year with giving it every ounce of energy I had, Raonic said at a news conference. Im pretty sure Im going to feel like crap tomorrow.Ill look back at 2016 with a lot of good moments, a lot of pride, a lot to be proud of. ' ' '