THE TEENAGE GIRL UNDERSTANDS
BY RACHEL MENNIES
Remember, there are other ways
that men can touch you, my mother said.
I thought of the man who pushed
his thigh against mine
on the bus, said how are you still fifteen—
but she meant
so they don’t get you pregnant.
When she told me about men,
my mother began her sentences
Understand. Remember.
We’ve all failed our mothers once.
On his mother’s couch, my mouth
filled with him, and I remembered
as a young child, my face slammed
against that first heavy wave:
how the brine filled my body
like a bag.
Understand that his cock
became the shape of my mouth
and claimed it. That night
he rocked my rigid neck
between his hands until
it locked. I ate nothing
but my work, spat him warm
into the sink.
If I told her I decided to marry
the first man who asked me
is this how you like to be touched,
my mother would understand.
KNEELING
BY RACHEL MENNIES
I trade each bite
between my mouth and throat,
and all my fat pleasure
rings dark with rediscovery.
Like the backyard tree
that sags with time—
what might I find
if I took a saw to it,
killed it to learn its health.
Bulimics know death
is a disease of increment.
Between my teeth, along
my gut, I see the spans
the acid’s left:
my pointer finger ringed
one shade dimmer
than my fist.
I make my body a map
of contempt:
grid in the ring of fat
at the belly button,
the thighs that grind
together. Soon the men
will mark me too—
the mirror assenting,
night-dark—
but in the morning,
the same creases
where my body bows.
The same plentiful
famine. My hungry throat
already claimed.
