Weight

Agatha’s hand

is heavy on the

velvet waist of my

half-laced bodice. The

meaning of weight: I

will soon sprawl beneath

brocade, her body

slung beneath my skirts.

She will snort, heave, stand,

stagger, and slam out.

Still, the weight of her

hand thrills through my thigh.

Let me lean, press my

hip against her suede

skin. Beneath my skirt

my slip rides up. I

feel my bodice crease

beneath her severe

fingertips. I drop

my eyes. Hide their sheen.

The weight deserts my

waist. Her hands lumber

across my breast. A

tug. Dangling ribbons

yield. Her terse voice: “A

double bow will keep

ribbons from skipping

out.” Hands slide beneath

my collar. Compress

my shoulders. I gleam.

I’d slump beneath her

pleats. I’m thread. Let her

weave me into twill.

I’d succumb. Her hands

are still. I stand, red.

Sociobiology vs. Feminism

I. Sociobiology, the Sociobiology of Sex/Gender, and Parental Investment Theory

Sociobiology is the attempt to explain animal (including human) social behavior in terms of evolutionary (natural selective) incentives.¹ Evolutionists since (and perhaps even before) Darwin have been trying to understand social behavior as an evolutionary phenomenon. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin himself theorized that, like physical traits, behavioral traits are heritable and contribute to differential reproductive fitness; i.e., behavioral traits are subject to natural selection.² Taking this claim as its premise, sociobiology attempts to explain the development of observed social behaviors in terms of their adaptivity, or their contributions to superior fitness.

Since the critiques I will be considering in this paper are largely feminist critiques, it makes sense for us to narrow our focus to the subfield of sociobiology which has caused feminists the most outrage: the sociobiology of sex/gender. Darwinian natural selection is propelled by competition, and, because species-mates compete for the same resources, some of the steepest competition happens within species.³ Sexual dimorphism is one result of this intraspecial competition: Darwin argued that sexual dimorphism came about through the mechanism of sexual selection, or as a result of competition between same-sex individuals for cross-sex mates.⁴ Diamond points out that competition also takes place between cross-sex organisms: cross-sex organisms need each other’s sexual/genetic resources in order to perpetuate their own genes: “It’s as if, at the moment of fertilization, the mother and father play a game of chicken, stare at each other, and simultaneously say, ‘I am going to walk off and find new partner, and you can care for this embryo if you want to, but even if you don’t, I won’t!”⁵ Because of the sexes’ differing reproductive “machinery,” the resources males would like from females do not always coincide with the resources females want to give to males, and vice versa.

I am nine. She is nineteen.

I want to wrap her wavy dark hair
around my arm.  Sometimes she catches
her lower lip between her teeth, and then
I can see that there is a way in. I want
to reach out with my pinky finger,
touch the corner of her mouth. The fissure.
But it disappears quickly. Her mouth
is a thin line. It is the path I walk.
It leads to her eyes, which are made
of winter soil. I have a spade.
I am stocky for a nine-year old. If I jump
on the top of the blade,
even frozen earth will give way.
Once, she hugs me. Her ribs are railroad tracks.
I have always been on the train. If I squeeze harder,
she will squeeze harder. She will squeeze me
into a ball of tinfoil. She will squeeze me
into a one-inch cube of bread. I will be small
enough. I will be allowed in. But the railroad tracks
are made of bone, not steel.
She disentangles herself from my wordless arms
and takes a breath. I put my head down on my knees.
I’m still here, but she has chosen air.

Stunted Sestina Instigated by a Corroded Beloved

Today I’m punctual. Still bare in here. Across

the conference hall the mingling starts. Aware of Her,

of course, glass flower shoved into my throat. Her network

congeals around her. Mission: I’m supposed to network

here, strut my stuff and seal a snarky deal across

this sewer of convention. Will not speak to Her.

I’ll speak to Larva Boy here. Only glance at Her

by accident. Untangle ratty strands of network,

that nest of icy shards. The seed. I’ll come across

the things inside of me I need. I need to cross her off my network.

My finger fits there.

Should I take her

to the lake? I want

to touch her freckly-

toothy glint when she

expects a frog. No,

I don’t. I want

to struggle on behalf

of her ribs and my

clavicle. I want to

inform her that she

has the right to refuse

rancid food offered

by overconfident lovers.

No hike. No lake. Just

a driving finger that

speaks against her

sternum.

Co-op Life

I

I slept with the window open all summer
and it took until September 9^th
to notice the crickets.

II

Co-op life is full of chickpeas.

III

Different dreams
with my new fuzzy rainbow sheet
and an embroidered burgundy pillowcase
made from a dress I bought at a fleamarket.

IV

I could make knee-length wraparound pants
from the fabric swatch hanging on my wall.
And I will, too.

V.

If you microwave cheese long enough,
the oil separates out and the rest of the cheese
is chewy like gum, but less stretchy.

VI.

The F one and a half octaves above middle C
is broken on our piano, which adds
anachronistic syncopation to Bach fugues.

VII.

Vanessa was disgusted with me for asking
how to clean the potato scrubber,
but at that point I really, really didn’t know.

VIII.

With three Emilys we can make
a triple-decker Emily sandwich. Or quadruple-decker,
depending on whether the Emilys are the bread or the filling.

Breath Unbound

Breast beneath a blouse.

Burrow.

Prim breast, not pointy.

Touch and it bites.

But if you don’t touch, you'll die.

Bargain: Paint a portrait.

  Touch only to portray.

 There is a deadline.

Deadline.  Dead.  Line.

Dead without the line,

bold breast’s profile,

but touch that border past the deadline, and—

scald with scale and scab.  Seep.

Don’t touch again, then.

But the portraiteer no Pygmalion—

in the poverty of her words,

painted breasts never breathe.

Breastless.  Death.

Breastless?  Yet—

self-slide a hand down.

Fish around.

Found.  Two mounds.

Steady. Solid.

New sound: another’s hand.

Ground where two can stand.

why do you need me to be a Woman?

if you go mining in my vagina,

it’s not what you find that will blind you.

i hold no knives.

the surprise is what you won’t find—

i stow no eggs waiting to become lives.

surprise: you won’t mind.

my vagina still shines.

There is a fire in the City of Peace.

א

I am the fire in the City of Peace.

I am bent on indiscriminate destruction.

All those who fight have ravaged the City.

In fighting, they destroy what they fight for.

I shall bring their efforts to their honest conclusion.

The City shall die.

I am the fire in the City of Peace.

ב

I am the fire in the City of Peace.

I know what brings together people who are at each other’s throats.

Mutual disaster, caused by neither side, brings together people who are at each other’s throats.

In fighting me, they shall stop fighting each other.

The city shall be saved.

I am the fire in the City of Peace.

ג

I am the Fire in the City of Peace.

Fight me not, lest ye not see Me for Me.

Thou shalt see Me.

I, the Lord your God, am the City of Peace.

I am the Fire in the City of Peace.

ד

I am the City of Peace.

The fire purifies my shame.

My shame is not my scream of pleasure in the forbidden.

My shame is my feigned scream of pleasure in the permitted.

I am the City of Peace.

ה

I am the City, purified by the Fire which is God.

Why then cannot I stop also being the Firefighter?

Why can't I stop fighting the fire in the City of Peace?

This is a monster’s dream, conveyed to me by phone:

I sculpt the missing parts of a dog out of leftover pizza. He whimpers when I make him eat it.

It’s the custom here, so I try not to pause when I see youths floating in formaldehyde.

What poetry? I can peel the poetess, layer by cling-wrap layer.

What’s-Left-Behind speaks. This is what he tells me:

"Do you want to know how to control poetry?

Every third day I lose my middle toe. And on that day I’m sure I’m not a poet."

Paschal

On a pilgrimage with my brother
to pay homage to our sister’s new child.

A path around the mountain, past tiered adobe houses
dusted white, dusted tan,

dusted with powdered sugar and cocoa,

climb the right ladder to the white hut, and there,

on a bed on stilts that rests on the dusted floor,

she is.

My sister’s daughter.

Eyes oval and complex like a fly’s,
rainbow sheens across the countless facets of their lenses,

facets arrayed like tiles on a roof.
She’s big, too, and learns quickly.
It seems like a secret,

a bond, because I remember the interminable wait
for my little brother to learn to speak,

but this one already understands.
Quick to learn,

and already trying to soften things for other people.

Even if no one else can, I can see
that Fly already knows how to move out of the way,

to put the broom within my sister’s reach.
It seems like a sweet, if sad, trait,

but my mother, Fly’s grandmother, speaks.

Marked.

By her eyes, she’s marked.

I knew about that, but not about the way Fly’s skin scars,

tender to the touch like a the skin of flu patient.

Marked, but so what? I’m marked too.

But my mother the witch, the wise woman --
she says it’s a sign of no good,

like Fly’s cleverness, too. She’s a changeling.

And I can already see my sister fading
as she foresees that the child will get taken away.

I can see now why Fly tries so hard to please even on this,
her second day of life.

I understand about being different,
about the cleverness you develop
in trying to pay off a guilt that was never your birthright.

Whose guilt is it? And who will pay for the loss of this one?

Semi-Crown of Sort-of-Sonnets for Sasha

I

I met a girl named Sasha yesterday.

She asked me how her blue-gray eyes appeared

when she stared through me to the wall beyond.

“The mirror doesn’t show me how they look,”

she said. I knew, because I too had tried

to see my eyes unfocused in the glass.

“I know,” I told her, wondering, because

who knew another person thought of eyes?

Of retinas and focus length, and how

observers classify one’s crooked gaze?

“I like you.” That’s what Sasha said. “I like

you too,” I said, and leaned into her arms.

Meditation upon Wondering Whether My Brother Will Visit Soon

It’s hot in the department store.

My mother’s mission: Buy a Shirt for Brother.

My brother’s mission: Thwart Mom's Mission.

I am a loyal sister who cries when my brother gets a spanking.

My mission: Be Brother's First Lieutenant, i.e., We Must Leave the Store Shirt-Free.

The sooner we exasperate my mother, the sooner we leave.

I broadcast my conspiratorial boredom by wandering off a little,

among shirt racks and ties

and beige new-clothes-and-metal-poles smells.

My brother marches indignantly towards me

holding a shirt that’s on the teal end of sky blue.

“Do you like this shirt?”

I do, but I remind myself,

We Must Leave the Store Shirt-Free.

My answer is clear.

“No.” Ummmm, “Too plain.”

But wait! I spy drooping hope.

“I thought you’d think it was pretty.”

But—the mission—………and yet,

“Oh, yeah, I mean, I do think it’s pretty—”

Too late. Nothing I can say will take it back.

All I want in the world

is for him to know

that I’m on his side.

Ten summers afterwards,

I will still rewind that conversation

wishing I could get it right.

But by then I will believe my brother

when he reminds me that the best way

to be a good first lieutenant

is to believe my own eyes.

Betrayal

In the summer you write me a letter

about the smell of porch wood in the sun.

In the winter

you and I

stand in the blistering cold

and sing a duet at a bus stop.

When winter comes again

you say

“I don’t like to sing with you

and I never have.”

I ask myself

could it possibly have been you

who noticed the smell of wood?

I don’t believe you exist.

I don’t believe you have ever existed.

The porch-wood you.

I tell you this.

Do you have an opinion?

The phone rings.

You’ll tell me your opinion later.

It’s later

and you have found me in my room.

I ask silently,

What is your opinion?

You offer me a pack of unwanted

yellow flowery tissues.

Is it a peace offering?

I don’t want them

but would rather take them than waste them.

You know this and

sneer at me for it.

Not a peace offering, then.

What just happened? asks my roommate.

Laughter rips through me like retching.

Violent,

unexpected,

unwelcome,

unquenchable.

It’s later still.

A spider jumps into my life like an

unmet deadline.

I leap away and stand back breathing hard, wielding a

yellow flowery tissue,

this my bayonet against my harmless opponent.

How silly;

and yet I can’t let him go,

can’t let him inhabit my bed like a

forgotten errand,

lurking at the margins

unseen but at times suddenly

urgent.

I lunge and hold my breath,

willing myself absent for the moment of death.

But even though I hold my breath and close my eyes,

I am still far too present at the moment when

a tiny spider infrastructure

fractures under my thumb.

The crunch,

like a bite,

makes me jump and shiver.

I am shuddering. But I

revel in the

fate of your

yellow flowery tissue.

How quivery it looks now,

faux forty-cent optimism

lined with something dead and

leggy.

How crystalline.