Selected Poems from Secrets of My Sex
[Published by Bombshelter Press, Los Angeles, CA, 2008] Messa Road It happened on Messa Road, at my friend, Lisa's, house. She was the shyest girl in our third grade class so it was odd that we were friends. I can't recall whether she encouraged me or tolerated me, but she had no problem announcing my number to an audience of teddy bears and dolls. I stepped on the concrete stage surrounded by grass and sang Gypsy Rose Lee's “Let Me Entertain You.” The mini skirt came off first. I let it fall to my feet and then kicked it onto the wisteria bush, where it sat like a denim hat over purple dreadlocks. I spun around, two braids flying as I whirled, yanking my blouse apart, the snaps opening all at once. Dancing in bare feet and my pink bikini, I swung the blouse in figure eights, like a ribbon gymnast tracing intricate patterns, and then I draped it over my head, singing and dancing blind, warm air on my body, hips and shoulders swaying. People cheered. I peered out from behind my blouse and saw a blur of boy's faces— a real audience had gathered; still I kept going, sensing a power I couldn't name and didn't understand. I tossed the eyelet blouse at a boy who was grinning at me, and looked back at him from over my shoulder. Then I spun and swirled, gyrated and giggled my way through the rest of the song. When it was over, the boy returned my shirt. I went to the wisteria bush and got dressed. Lisa's older brother and his two friends who had come outside to watch came close to me, and the cute one said, “I'll show you mine if you show me yours.” I lifted my skirt and slid down my bikini bottom. They all stared at my hairless vagina. When it was his turn, the boy said, “You're a filthy slut,” and then nudged his friends. “Let's get out of here,” he said, and they ran inside the house laughing. I understood then there was nothing more intriguing than the body, the genitals, all the sex stuff. I don't know how my sisters heard, but that kind of thing leaks out and gets around the neighborhood. They asked me how I could show my face at school. As time passed, my sisters discovered they only needed to utter two words to keep me in my place. “Messa Road.”They said it in front of our parents and friends, laughing at the private joke that gave them power. For a long time, shame made me forget all of this, especially how young I was, how beautiful and brave to sing and dance like that, to stand there naked that way, eager to see and be seen. Essence My therapist says the new name and the haircut are diversions from the real issue, so I ask, what is the real issue and she says, You—the essence of you. I go home having no idea what she means, but later I consider my Soul. I've seen it in my dreams. It's ageless, genderless, and wrapped in a flowing white garment. It hovers over the sea while I sit beneath a palm tree on a pristine beach. Its face is hidden, but kindness and wisdom emanate from it and my belly is satisfied in its presence, as if I've eaten a plate of Mom's homemade pasta. My Soul hugs me, though it has no arms. It nurses me, though it has no nipple. It communicates without words or eyes, and speaks to my heart. They are best friends. I envision them snapping their bubble gum and swapping character cards: Courage, Love, Faith. Perhaps my therapist is suggesting I spend more time in communion with this part of myself, listening and allowing that which is inside—and not outside— to guide me. She knows my essence doesn't care what I look like, whether my hair is short or long, whether I am ten pounds overweight or ten pounds too thin. It doesn't care what I call myself or what I do, whether I dance or write; it's not concerned with doing, but with being. The thought that I'm not good enough would be incomprehensible to my essence, which is perfect— the same love and light that radiates from everybody else. My essence is connected to all living things. It is unafraid, unapologetic, a tidal wave of permission alive forever. My essence is a child, a whore, a crone, a priest, a parrot, and a lover. It can't be pinned down like a butterfly or dissected like a frog. My essence is more knowledgeable than my therapist, and though I am grateful for them both, it is my essence that knows and helps me remember who I am. Pet Envy I am jealous of the way he touches Angie, stroking, patting, massaging her, making room in his chair— even when he’s eating. I am jealous of the way he fills her bowls, and how he lets her slather his face with her pink tongue. He feeds her with his hands. The last thing he fed me was a compliment I fished for. Has he forgotten the foods we ate with our fingers and other body parts? Chocolate sauce drizzled on our thighs? And how about the games we played: Sticky Nipples in the Land of Milk and Honey. Bella on the Half Shell. Whip Cream Monopoly. The garden offered as many delicacies as the kitchen. Has he forgotten the rose petal treatment? One layer softer than the next? Can she do that for him? I’d settle for a walk around the block, holding hands so when he says he’s taking her for a hike in the canyon, just the two of them, I shrink inside and remember what it was like to be newly wed, before I knew anything of struggle and the distance that comes with time. Tangled When my daughter doesn't brush her hair the strands clump into a knot at the back of her head the size of a softball, and I go hard inside, because I've told her a hundred times to care for herself. “You look like you have no Mother,” I say, the knot in my stomach tight as the one in her hair, as I disappear into memories of messy-haired girls, and how my mother and I judged their mothers. We are late for school, but still, I brush my daughter's hair so she can go to the assembly and accept her citizenship award groomed and cared for like the affluent, only child she is. I say, “This is your job! If you'd brush your hair every day we wouldn't be in this mess!” I show her again how to brush from the bottom up, struggling to use gentle strokes, as I seethe at every “Ouch” and “That hurts!” I am unprepared for this, a daughter who doesn't worry the way I do, who would go out into the world and expose her weakness, her flaws, who would go out into the world exactly the way she is. |
Secrets of My Sex Publication Party Photos 
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“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” —Leonardo da Vinci