Portrait

1. I wore
a black leather jacket
and dark stockings
always
with garters
and straight, ass-hugging skirts
that I rolled at the waist
so my knees showed

I wore my hair
teased
my bangs poked into
my eyes
eyes black
lids lined black
underscored with dark pencil
shadowed blue
purple
green

I smoked cigarettes
drank anything alcoholic straight
scratched initials into my arms
with razor blades
and broke the tiny bones of my knuckles
banging into walls
and yelling,
"I hate him, I hate him!"

2. my father
I remember
our family
watching television together
he pointed to the chorus girls
saying, "hey Wend, look at them titties
those knockers
that pair
hey Mom, some tits huh?"

and then
at dinner
I'd hear him
"pussy, pussy," he'd call my mother
and then he'd pinch her nipple
or ass
so hard it hurt

and then
at the diner
"get a load of that, Mom," he said
elbowing my mother
to look up the waitress's skirt
as she bent over a table

3. I remember
gritting down hard
crashing together
as many teeth as would touch

I remember
bursting through
my bedroom door
smashing my pillow
warning him
"don't touch me, don't ever touch me!"

I remember
photos
on the cellar room walls
photos of women, naked
posed
firm-breasted
flat-stomached
smiling

targets
at which my father taught me
to shoot BB guns
aim at nipples and crotches
fire holes into breasts

4. late nights
11:30
my parents upstairs in bed
I crouched
at the bottom step
terrified
listening for the sounds
of him fucking her

mornings
I'd leave for school
dressed
armored
a hard girl
in black
in anger
in hate
knowing so young
the pain
of being woman
in this world.

mother-father
dinner conversation

"listen ta this, Mom
I was walkin' down Market Street today
and along comes blue balls
swear ta Christ, Mom
he's got balls this big
honest ta god
this big!"
he says, outlining
an imaginary bowling ball
with his hands

"uh huh, Eddy"

"you should see'em, Mom
swear ta Christ
it's all I can do not to piss in
my pants laughin'
he wears this leather flap over'em
with nothin' else on!
there they are
flappin' away big as elephants'
right out in the open
right out on Market Street"

"He must have some sort of genetic disorder, Eddy,"
my mother offered

"Christ knows, Mom
but they're blue as a sonuvabitch
and the bastard can hardly walk!
imagin'im tryin' ta stick it into some
young chippie, hey Mom?" he says,
hands again shaping
that bowling ball
"she'd have to be this big!"

adolescence repeating

hey
I'm the black leather jacket queen
I drink whiskey straight
I bleed red my arm with razor blades
daddy

did you think I could forget
your workshop walls?
the photos you pinned there of posed women
firm-breasted, flat-stomached?

did you think I could forget
your calendar queens?
the ones with the tiny round holes
in the nipple and crotch parts
where I too would aim my BB gun?

no daddy
I
you
daddy
shooting me through and through
no matter what i do
I hear you
calling me
"hey Wendy, get a load
of them tits on that broad"
I hear you calling mom
"pussy, pussy, pussy plum"

dum-dum daddy
you come now
I spit you out