Vachon Imagined

A certain defiance in her tone shocked the room.

But she was supposed to be nice—
that was the agreement no one had written down but everyone enforced.

Heads tilted north and south,
as if agreement could be coached into bone and nerve,
as if movement could be persuaded into truth.

But she did not follow.

She spat out the vinegar they had sold as wine.

No performance of sweetness left in her mouth
could disguise what she had tasted.

A certain defiance, yes—
because she was no longer afraid of what passed for power,
the kind that arrives like fragrance and leaves like impact,
soft at first, then sudden, like a wave deciding it owns the shore.

She did not collapse under it.

She reorganized under it.

Something in her reassembled—
not into obedience,
but into clarity.

A tiger in the presence of tigers.
A lamb in the presence of lambs.

No translation needed between the two.