My little sister said
you’re getting hair down there.
Flushed, I said
I know
hoping she’d disappear.
How unfair
and beyond my control.
My body had become
full of so much
I had to hide–
explorations in the dark.
I imagined pounding
my small breasts
to make them disappear.
I didn’t want to become
my mother,
mean and mammalian–
her only power came
from haranguing others.
Embarrassing in her nightgown
sheer through the doorway.
She was everything
that made me
want to cover my face
in shame.
Pat Owen is the author of 4 volumes of poetry Crossing the Sky Bridge, Orion’s Belt at the End of the Drive, Bardo of Becoming and The Crossroad. Her work has appeared in Hong Kong Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, The Louisville Review, Raven’s Perch and Highland Park Poetry as well as in numerous anthologies.
