She Walks in Beauty_ A Woman's Journey Through Poems - Caroline Kennedy [43]
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
Grown-up
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
Puberty—With Capital Letters
ELLEN HAGAN
There went being a kid. There went
Barbie dolls, baby dolls, kitchen sets, play-
doh, crayons, make-believe (well, maybe not
make-believe). But there went innocent, child-
like, there went one-piece bathing suits. In came
adolescence, even though I’d had my period
since I was 10. In came self-consciousness,
waiting for breasts. In came attitude, and “Why
can’t I?” “You said!” “I hate you,” under my breath.
In came diaries with hidden messages and dares
I always took. In came kissing and not kissing,
and doing it, and not doing it, and rounding bases,
and not rounding bases, and rounding bases having
nothing at all to do with baseball, and sometimes wishing
you could just play baseball instead.
In came. Rebellion. Clichés. Are you kidding? Drinking.
Do-overs. Cheer-leading Uniforms. Regret. Pure Bliss.
Uncovering. Feeling not good enough. Cockiness. Joy.
In came wild cards. Short skirts. Cocktails. 15. Funnels.
Mid-riff baring. Belly-button rings. Challenges. Being
challenging. The ultimate change. The ultimate fast-forward.
In came growing up.
Bra Shopping
PARNESHIA JONES
Saturday afternoon, Marshall Fields, 2nd floor, women’s lingerie please.
At sixteen I am a jeans and t-shirt wearing tomboy who can think of
a few million more places to be instead of in the department store
with my mother bra shopping.
Still growing accustomed to these two new welts
lashed on to me by puberty, getting bigger by the moment,
mother looks at me and says:
While we’re here, we’ll get some new (larger) shirts for you too.
I resent her for taking me away from baseball fields,
horse play, and riding my bike.
We enter into no man’s, and I mean no man in sight land
where women fuss and shop all day for undergarments;
the lingerie department is a world of frilly lace, night gowns,
grandma panties and support everything.
Mama takes me over to a wall covered with hundreds of white bras,
some with lace and little frills or doilies like party favors,
as if undergarments are a cause for celebration.
A few have these dainty ditsy bows in the middle.
That’s a nice accent don’t you think? Mama would say. Isn’t that cute?
Like this miniature bow in the middle will take
some of the attention away from what is really going on.
When mama and I go brassiere shopping it never fails:
a short woman with an accent and glasses
attached to a chain around her neck who cares
way too much about undergarments comes up to us.
May I help you, dearies?
The bra woman assists my mother in finding the perfect bra
to as my mother put it, hold me in the proper way. No bouncing please.
Working as a team plotting to ruin my entire day
with the bra fitting marathon, they conspire up about ten bras
in each hand which equal forty. Who’s making all these