by Selen Frantz

A mother I do not know is intent
on telling me about her weight—
how much more
or less of herself
existed last month, last year,
or since the time before creating something
from a cellular nothing
and welcoming an expanse of guilt
to sprout from its absence.

This will not be the last time
someone presents me their shame
like an open wound
before scanning my eyes,
starving for empathy.

I worry that women see the outlines
of my breasts and expect
acrid self-loathing to be our universal tongue,
as if disgust is a trait carried on the X chromosome—
everyone gets a little
but we carry twice as much
and are trying to not let it spill
out from over our fingertips
while also holding the sky on our shoulders.

I can only nod, a small
flick of my jaw,
choreographed to take up
as little space as possible.

—

I remember my mother, the white porcelain ledge of our bathtub, and the way that she sighed, pinched, and dissected. My mother, the limits of my known world, desperately trying to take my first landscape (her rolling hills) and shrink itself to be as small and unnoticeable as it possibly could. In the bathroom, as the stagnant scent of bleach singes my nostrils, I realize that sour language is the only thing a woman can indulge in, just as each daughter before me had learned.

—

Trees do not sprout, grasping
towards the sun, to be smooth
and finite—

they are not taught to wilt
as their fruit ripens,
saturated with life.

Selen Frantz is an urban planner from Detroit and is currently the William T. Battrick Poetry Fellow at Oberlin College. Her work has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, BarBar, Meniscus, Prime Number Magazine, ellipsis, and elsewhere.