Biopic
It was a relief to be told, in sixth grade,
that people knew I was a virgin by my walk.
There was no need to pretend anymore,
since my footsteps told all, or my face
flashing its which-fork-do-I-use vibe.
Look at me drunk, lost, turning to the moon
for answers, on a bridge dropping bread
to slime-backed turtles just in case a director
needs details for the movie of my life. It’s a sad tale
of how sometimes I got sent to bed early,
while it was still light out. I don’t know why.
But I had an afghan of neon granny squares
and V. C. Andrews books to read in secret.
I had another diversion, which was to isolate
one bump on the popcorn ceiling and try never
to lose sight of it, even when I blinked. Sometimes
I was the speck, backtracking through space
and time to find my own lamp-lit window.
I was the icon housed within, my braids
pulling apart as I peered through darkness
at the willow tree across the street. That summer
I highlighted every word in The Witch
of Blackbird Pond and fed the pages to a river
with a Choctaw name, thus completing the ritual.
* * * * *
Resting Bitch Face
The horror of finding myself documented
unawares in a photograph taken while I cheered
at my son’s wrestling meet produced a shock
for which I was unprepared. My girth
was unfairly measured by the lens,
and though I have, in recovery from an injury
sustained while lifting weights competitively,
gained both softness and kilos, such changes
are not pronounced to the degree that the image
leads the onlooker to believe. Additionally revealed
is my double chin, emphasized by a covert attempt
to check my phone. Slight gut, momentary double chin —
these imperfections are easily explained.
But the phenomenon of my resting bitch face —
that prime unflattery — frankly, I wish Archimedes
or some other genius of classical antiquity
would chime in to solve for this scowl, worn here
in a moment of what I recall as mirth. A scowl
so exquisite that my son, pausing between victories,
notes that it is meme-worthy, and while his comment
was meant in jest, my face contorts, now sporting
the grimace of one who tasted a spider
when expecting honey on the tongue, or who realized
that his wave to the stands was intended not for me,
but for a girlfriend who possesses the thinness
and personality of a paper doll. The epiphany strikes
like a hen peck from behind. Am I bitchy?
Or even worse, bitter? True, my jokes are mean,
and I talk shit, and left unguarded my lips smash
into a frown. But I’m powerless over this tendency
to ponder myself into a grumpy swoon
while my kaleidoscopic mind bounces from thought
to thought. With shame, I dredge up the memory
that I wore this face in my first picture
with you, my son, when you were just born.
I was exhausted, and I had blood in my hair,
and all I could think was that I would die if you ever
pierced your ears. Now you can do whatever
you want, because to me, you seem like a god.
And I pause here to tip my honeyed wine
to Sappho, her lost words ever on my mind. Sappho,
another straight-mouthed beauty, her poetry
so revered her face was stamped on coins.
The Greeks idealized the restraint of her
archaic smile, but I see impatience written there,
as though she knew her value would be diminished
by the touch of many thumbs. In her face I see
myself, lips hiding a snarl, corners of the mouth curled
to stifle what I could unleash, delicious, divine
execrations on stand-by courtesy of the muse of mean.