When she was born, they said,
You are small. Remember this.
Feel these safety pins
anchoring our strings in your palms.
She said,
So far, I’m just watching.
When she began to walk, they said,
Keep your chin down and
carry this urn on your head
like your very own
porcelain pitcher enclosing
the flower of your worth.
She said,
I often trip.
Out.
They kept her in Rapunzel’s room;
but when her eyes reached the sill,
she clambered down that iron
and gulped urine-yellow phrases
off the sidewalk:
Dig it, people,
a soul can dance only
to its own beat.
They said,
Shit. Already the street dirt.
Take the brand and
shove it up.
Bind her up, they said,
She grew curiously calm and she grew
curiously taller, wore
pink gloves and cast-iron pantyhose,
spoke only when she was
spoken to, saying
I am studying. You are my models.
Your every syllable and sign
is stamped on my skin.
They were pleased, gave more play to the leash, said,
So long as you are good,
you may go and come.
This is called Freedom.
She said,
I want one of that and
two of those and I want them
now.
They said,
You are doing well.
But her body parts grew unruly,
began leaping, would not
stoop to their tasks.
Bind her up, they said,
everything but the breasts.
We like breasts.
Make your own milk, she said,
and even as they watched,
she embedded herself in their
newmown cement and fell silent.
Bang as they might, her skin
made no sound.
Sometimes though,
oh, every full moon or so, comes a thuck
of a sound, like unstuck footsteps, going
suck-er-u, suck-er-u, suck…
But of course they are certain
they must be mistaken.
Patricia Brooks is the former Managing and Fiction Editor of the Northwest Review literary journal. She has published two novels (Dell) and stories and poetry in a variety of print and on-line publications. Her newest novel is Whose Little Girl Are You?
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