Poetry |

“Girls Department,” “1961” & “All At Once”

Girls Department

 

 

I stared at my shameful flesh in the three-way mirror.

Mother, my guide, my witness, pinched me between

her fingers, thinking aloud: could she work

with the skimpy seam allowance? Get it to fit?

My model-thin cousin Nancy sent me a box

of hand-me-downs: soft wool skirts, an orchid

sweater-set a size too small –– another girl’s raiment.

My sister meant well, Mother instructed,

then took me to Brigham’s for a treat: hot fudge

melted breast-like pyramids of peppermint-stick

ice cream, and I crunched the small clear candies.

I sang in a talent contest once, “Indian Love Call”

in a green tulle gown Mother grabbed from a bin.

She had an eye for a bargain. She took up the hem.

 

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

 

1961

 

 

What was I doing

looking for help in the phonebook?

Then walking up Prospect

to the doctor’s polished boat of a desk,

that face the color of thin milk.

I needed a diaphragm. Unmarried ––                         

his steel-rimmed glasses glinted.

His satisfied look was a cat’s.

 

If I thought about anything then

it was how to make five dollars

feed us for a week. How to soak

kidneys in vinegar to draw out smell.

They had a bluish undertone

like the alizarin crimson

Robert squeezed onto his palette

to paint the thrift-store wineglass.

Thirty-nine cents a pound ––

relief from tamale pie.

Whatever he thought, he ate it

and went back to his painting.

 

The pregnancy lasted a few weeks

past the wedding. What’s still

with me: the shape the doctor’s mouth

made in that dim office. Disgust.

Nothing could leach it out of me.

I’m still breathing its faint

unmistakable odor.

 

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

All at Once

 

 

I bent double, sounds came out of me.

No way to stop the dark flood

soaking into the passenger seat.

More blood than a period, but too late:

my wax-white bridal dress, your

friend’s cello in the echoey chapel

already behind us, parents receding

like the road in our rearview mirror.

My wet skirt stuck to the seat.

That breathtaking fist of pain

when the thickened wall I couldn’t see

shed its unbreathing ball of cells

as if it had made a decision ––

something I shrank from

in my somnambulist life

unless we count the times

I’ve cut and run. I still see you

speechless behind the wheel,

jaw clenched as you swerve

toward the lit Esso station,

last chance for a long stretch of miles.

Contributor
Joan Larkin

Joan Larkin’s sixth poetry collection, Old Stranger, is forthcoming in 2024 from Alice James Books. Previous books include My Body: New and Selected Poems and Blue Hanuman (Hanging Loose Press). A lifelong teacher and former resident of Brooklyn and Tucson, she now lives in northern New Jersey. Her honors include the Lambda, NEA, and Shelley Memorial awards.

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