I did not imagine my body, not at first—
not the way I thought other girls did,
with their catalogues of beautiful parts:
their shapely calves and reddish hair,
but dim, disappointing eyes;
their full lips and long limbs,
their concave breasts. I did not
want breasts. I did not want hair,
or legs, or lips, full or otherwise.
My class in particular baffled me:
their hitched-up skirts and lip gloss,
their bathroom whisperings
and the content of their prayers—
how they wanted dress-down days
and smoother skin, curling irons,
high-heeled shoes, and the kind
of shirt you didn’t wear to church.
Gray-sweatered, Mary-Janed,
scrunched at the final desk,
I longed for the smooth testimony
of the nun’s habit, and the high crown
of her wimple, the special names
she kept for her fellows, and their chats—
for so I hoped—of orphan animals
and needy children. Such were
my dreams, my nightly prayers
to Mary and Theresa, Joan and Rose,
names I’d whisper in my pillow,
like a charm, the abbesses
and schizophrenics, the mothers
superior, hair-netted, Bible-belted,
pear-shaped, all women still
strange and whole and mine.
