Nickole Brown is the author of Sister (Red Hen Press, 2007). She graduated from the M.F.A. Program for Creative Writing at Vermont College, studied English Literature at Oxford University as an English Speaking Union Scholar, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She co-edited the anthology, Air Fare: Stories, Poems, & Essays on Flight. She also has served as the National Publicity Consultant for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival and as the Program Coordinator for the Union Institute & University writing residency in Slovenia. Nickole works for the nonprofit, independent, literary press, Sarabande Books, and currently lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
It Is Possible He Thought
It is possible he thought
he loved me. It is possible
he wanted me
glistening in gold
lamé and muffed in white
fur, it is possible he braided
my pigtails after showing me
this and that
and exactly how fast.
It is possible he mesmerized me
with mouth tricks: a dragon spit
of lighter fluid throwing flames into the air,
bangles of smoke rings breathed to fit
my skinny wrists, the fire put out by flicking
his empty cheeks to make the insomniac sound
of water night-dripping into a sink. He then
showered, and smelling of fresh cigarettes and
blue soap, asked before entering, stopped
when I cried hurt.
It is possible he bought me,
games with men made of pixels, marbles, plastic
coins, but the object was always the same:
eat or be eaten, eat as much as you can.
I then got a vinyl pop star jacket,
dozens of zippers to catch every flyaway
hair, and a three-story dream
house where I hid away
the weekly allowance, ten dollar bills
stuffed into all the home's hollow spaces--
the white columns, its hard blanketless bed,
I even pulled apart the doll bodies, crammed
full the doll legs.
It is possible the year before
you were born he quit me
and I drew fourth-grade pictures
of swan necks coughing up
eggs into the womb,
that I scored an A by memorizing
test in testicle, fall in fallopian,
saw public to be one slender letter away
from curling in his rank and humid dark.
I knew the answer but wanted to see
if he'd tell the truth, so I asked him
how babies were made, cloyed the question
with bellybuttons, a pink or blue stork.
He said I just wanted to give you
a sneak peek, a head start. <br />
Nights he would unroll his
blueprints across the kitchen table, whisper,
See this? With this I can buy you a hundred
red bicycles lined here to there. I imagined
chrome gleaming, the handlebar jet stream
of yellow and orange flaring, fast-peddling far
beyond the long black drive.
Pinworms
I woke
with the sheets
back,
my underwear
down, and
mama using
two fingers
to spread
me apart.
When I
jumped
she clicked
the flashlight
off,
said just checking,
they only crawl
out of you in the
pitch dark,
don't you worry
yourself now,
then finding nothing
she was
gone.
lamé and muffed in white
fur, it is possible he braided
my pigtails after showing me
this and that
and exactly how fast.
It is possible he mesmerized me
with mouth tricks: a dragon spit
of lighter fluid throwing flames into the air,
bangles of smoke rings breathed to fit
my skinny wrists, the fire put out by flicking
his empty cheeks to make the insomniac sound
of water night-dripping into a sink. He then
showered, and smelling of fresh cigarettes and
blue soap, asked before entering, stopped
when I cried hurt.
It is possible he bought me,
games with men made of pixels, marbles, plastic
coins, but the object was always the same:
eat or be eaten, eat as much as you can.
I then got a vinyl pop star jacket,
dozens of zippers to catch every flyaway
hair, and a three-story dream
house where I hid away
the weekly allowance, ten dollar bills
stuffed into all the home's hollow spaces--
the white columns, its hard blanketless bed,
I even pulled apart the doll bodies, crammed
full the doll legs.
It is possible the year before
you were born he quit me
and I drew fourth-grade pictures
of swan necks coughing up
eggs into the womb,
that I scored an A by memorizing
test in testicle, fall in fallopian,
saw public to be one slender letter away
from curling in his rank and humid dark.
I knew the answer but wanted to see
if he'd tell the truth, so I asked him
how babies were made, cloyed the question
with bellybuttons, a pink or blue stork.
He said I just wanted to give you
a sneak peek, a head start. <br />
Nights he would unroll his
blueprints across the kitchen table, whisper,
See this? With this I can buy you a hundred
red bicycles lined here to there. I imagined
chrome gleaming, the handlebar jet stream
of yellow and orange flaring, fast-peddling far
beyond the long black drive.
Pinworms
I woke
with the sheets
back,
my underwear
down, and
mama using
two fingers
to spread
me apart.
When I
jumped
she clicked
the flashlight
off,
said just checking,
they only crawl
out of you in the
pitch dark,
don't you worry
yourself now,
then finding nothing
she was
gone.
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