Someday I Will Love Merna Louise                          

                       After Susan Rich

 

When nearsighted eyes fool her

footsteps—and tumbles turn her

early childhood days into skinned 

knees and face-first falls onto sidewalks

chalked with hopscotch forms, and 

scattered stones—this gangly girl,

captured for a moment, stands 

beside the blue family Buick, posing 

defiantly—fists on hips, ragtag dress 

hitched up—curled tongue sticking out 

from her frowning lips—her response 

to her photographer father, whenever 

he orders her to smile.

 

So, when does she begin to bite her tongue,

bury it deep in the well of her mouth?

Is it when she’s caught rolling up 

her below-the-knee skirt to mid-thigh height

as she walks to middle school one morning? 

Is her mother the first in a long queue 

of adults who school her on the rules 

and restrictions of good-girl dictums?

 

After braces and finishing school,

she walks in teen fashion shows, 

learns to turn her head just so—beguilingly 

tossing her hair, smiling on cue

for the photographer. To relax her 

clenched fingers, he teaches her to shake 

her wrists as if air-drying wet hands. 

His trick works long enough for the shot. 

As she walks off set, she sucks in her cheeks,

curls her tongue, tight inside her mouth—