"The Final Reflection" by Anna Girgenti
Dear Father,
I fell in love with a man who refuses to see
a ray of light
from the fire you set in me,
but he smells the smoke and wrinkles his nose.
Ask him about me, he becomes a salesman in the department store
on sixth and Michigan describing the last piece of lingerie
“sexy and cheap”
“last of its kind”
“get it before it’s gone”
19 years now, and I have not been
called
“beautiful” by a salesman
Women
in our family do not wait on the top shelf,
collect dust in the folds of their lace,
taken down on the weekends
shaken out, washed, and
refolded
maybe hung on pink hangers with ribbons
someone
will like it enough to buy it
Women--
to the horror of the store manager,
fell from the shelf and
sprouted limbs
Father,
Think of me sweating under sheets,
morning light
14th story window
my body, what’s left of it, dead on top of his,
just a
frayed piece of silk resting on his hip.
He yawns, reaches down into my throat until his fingers
brush against my ribs and he smiles, “does that tickle?”
Father,
I find your face in the shape of the bruises
all over me,
there you are on my neck and
between my thighs,
collarbone kisses
like butterfly footprints from forehead to groin
Muffled screams, I try to
pull his arm from my mouth
so that I can speak,
but his fingers now wrap around
a single rib inside of me, and
it snaps
Father,
he pulls this thing out of me
by the mouth, my mouth
doorway to Eden
pits of the ocean shake with thunder
earth cracks from the inside
hands of God
reach down into the lingerie store and
down onto my blood-soaked bed by the window
and down into my aching
body
and this man says, “it was mine from the start”
shakes the fist that holds my rib and
the door shuts behind him
out of the garden of lace
apple-red,
dry core,
Your daughter.
Dear Father,
I fell in love with a man who refuses to see
a ray of light
from the fire you set in me,
but he smells the smoke and wrinkles his nose.
Ask him about me, he becomes a salesman in the department store
on sixth and Michigan describing the last piece of lingerie
“sexy and cheap”
“last of its kind”
“get it before it’s gone”
19 years now, and I have not been
called
“beautiful” by a salesman
Women
in our family do not wait on the top shelf,
collect dust in the folds of their lace,
taken down on the weekends
shaken out, washed, and
refolded
maybe hung on pink hangers with ribbons
someone
will like it enough to buy it
Women--
to the horror of the store manager,
fell from the shelf and
sprouted limbs
Father,
Think of me sweating under sheets,
morning light
14th story window
my body, what’s left of it, dead on top of his,
just a
frayed piece of silk resting on his hip.
He yawns, reaches down into my throat until his fingers
brush against my ribs and he smiles, “does that tickle?”
Father,
I find your face in the shape of the bruises
all over me,
there you are on my neck and
between my thighs,
collarbone kisses
like butterfly footprints from forehead to groin
Muffled screams, I try to
pull his arm from my mouth
so that I can speak,
but his fingers now wrap around
a single rib inside of me, and
it snaps
Father,
he pulls this thing out of me
by the mouth, my mouth
doorway to Eden
pits of the ocean shake with thunder
earth cracks from the inside
hands of God
reach down into the lingerie store and
down onto my blood-soaked bed by the window
and down into my aching
body
and this man says, “it was mine from the start”
shakes the fist that holds my rib and
the door shuts behind him
out of the garden of lace
apple-red,
dry core,
Your daughter.