broken beading

Travelers wear more bracelets
than their less adventurous counterparts;
as if ratted string ties them
more closely to memories of
unfamiliar voices echoing from
blue domes. There is dancing in
my beads, and when I close my eyes
there is a cream girl who's elbows
are catching the eyes of her dance
partners. She wears a red and white
dress and has no shadow. She sounds
like a rainstick. I have several shells
strung together for her, but I go
bare-wristed more often than not these days,
leaving my memories in a jewelry box, as if
the history is forgettable. My edges
were never quite smoothed back out.
My thighs still sound like wind inside of a tent,
too noisy to go unnoticed; so I keep my stories
unobtrusive under my sleeves until they fall off.