Girlhood

by Marda Messick


I remember my girl body
the summer before eleven
when I loved horses
and mooned around the stable,
head full of the Black Stallion.

My secret desire
was for Ned to kiss Nancy Drew
in the next book.  

This was before I bled.
I knew about the blood
from a pamphlet with flowers,
and my mother packing 
pads like bandages
and the belt thing
in my camp trunk, just in case.

She would buy me a training bra
before the first day of school.

I remember my girl body
and the man in the barn. 
The dirty old man.
Manure and whiskey reek.
Mouthing my little breasts,
putting his finger in.

It didn’t occur to me to kick him
and run like the wind. Or tell.

Instead, I thought, 
really I thought, 
“Poor man he must be so lonely.”

Now, I think,
“The bastard must be so dead.”


* * * * *

Marda Messick is a poet and accidental theologian living in Tallahassee, FL, on land that is the ancestral territory of the Apalachee Nation. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Christian Century, Verse-Virtual, Delmarva Review, and other journals.