What happened in utero
was that my mother’s hairy back
got transcribed into my hairy legs.
Ten years later for the sixth-grade prom
she refused to allow me to shave,
so my black hairs poked through the mesh,
as if a wooly zoo animal lived beneath.
All my friends shaved their legs
and I was left embarrassed.
Years later as a fifteen-year-old,
during a bike ride across America
drivers laughed
at my legs asking was I a boy or a girl.
Oh, and then I met you with the blonde mother
who never shaved and you falling in love
wondering if I was an alien of sorts.
So many embarrassing moments:
I refuse to count them.
Life is funny that way
because I guess you saw beyond it all
and I’m so happy that you did
as my life would have been different
without you in it.
I am glad you looked beyond everything
and I got electrolysis when pregnant
with our second child.
All this taught me
not to sweat the small stuff
but to just live life and all will work out.
