Menarche (ROUND 2)

Let's workshop this narrative-ekphrastic poem!

Menarche
 
1
 
From when she was still in diapers, her father 
orchestrated himself with hat-tipping etiquette 
for her, his first born: “Looking lovely today, 
Mademoiselle Rosaline.” It was their game 
since toothless peekaboo and singsong kisses 
cradled in his arms. Morning and evening 
they doted on one another. To the dim envy 
of her siblings, with whom he danced as well
but mainly in private (and with whom he broke
character more easily to address as a parent),
he would predictably request Rosaline's hand 
at house parties and receptions and hog roasts,
bowing: “May I have this dance, ma chérie?”
Her head erect but still a foot below his chin
as they improvised in leash to polished steps,
her mother’s smiley eyes—although manifesting 
gratitude for a husband loved by his children—
watched no longer with self-abandon, teary
in years dead, now that Rosaline locks her gaze 
into his and has ceased to giggle when twirled.
 
She has not stood on his feet nearly two years.
And much longer she has treated her siblings
as her own fruit: tucking them in; questioning
whether they wash-clothed behind their ears,
brushed their teeth, their gums too; insisting—
with an occasional whack—that they clear 
their elbows off the table; hounding them 
to make themselves “more useful” whenever 
the family hosts one of their frequent fetes. 
Instead of letting herself cave to the ebbing 
(but still-present) enticement of their giggles
(as happened often in that tween interval
she feels proud to be beyond), Rosaline reads
inside the backyard hammock, now and then 
calling out third-eye commands (to be careful 
or to stop being so rough with each other)
while the little ones play tag or climb trees 
or, keeping at a whisper to avoid her ire, 
throwing rocks at gator eyes in the bayou. 

The lady of the house, adult relatives as well, 
long found it cute—this “play at being grown.”
That soil, however, has been shifting: hours 
in the bathroom; weight gain around the hips; 
moodiness; dietary vigilance—these, tremors
measured against the uptick of Rosaline siding, 
in fearless eloquence, with her father at the table 
(on politics, town gossip, religion, parenting too),
and the recent incidents of Rosaline criticizing 
her mother for being too soft on the children. 

Literature like Les Liaisons Dangereuses lamplit  
on her nightgown lap in the living-room chair, 
Rosaline would often wait up for her father,
catching him first before her mother upstairs.
He would arrive late so many nights smelling 
on his mouth and fingers and forehead even 
of what she like her mother knew to be vulva
and its surrounding territory. For a long time
she refused to face her father’s philandering. 
It imperiled her faith in herself as number one,
son coeur. And so she had to convince her sister, 
who once caught her father standing in the shed 
with the naked legs of a Mardi-Gras dancer
around him pedaling, that “Daddy must have
been helping to fix her costume,” the moaning
explained by the difficulty of the undertaking.
 
But with her most recent resolve to cultivate
an air of wifely gravitas, Rosaline no longer 
turns her eyes from the truth—and definitely 
not with the rationale tattered from her lips: 
“He can’t want other women since Momma 
is the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Indeed, when she confronted her mother
recently about her siblings sneaking snacks 
and her mother in turn put her in her place
(“I’ve got my eyes on each of you children 
in my house, little girl”), Rosaline spoke—
her sharp glance slanted—words pregnant 
with cruelty: “Yes, you’re right Momma”—
her tone sarcastic in the deadpan delivery— 
“nothing ever happens behind your back.” 

In her heart has grown a perilous conviction,
nonverbal (since verbalizing it would involve
direct confrontation not simply with the taboo
but with the more entrenched and imposing
reality, yes, that her father belongs to another:  
“the most beautiful woman in the world”)—
a conviction that were her father her man
he would be too taken care of, too satisfied
with her well-ordered and affectionate home,
too melted by her moves (as he always seemed
anyway), too petite and pliable, even to think
of enjoying the company of another woman. 

Sa bichette would take off his shoes and socks 
when he got home. From the seed of cooing
back at each other when she was all gums 
(knees to her chest on the changing table)
to holding hands at preschool tea parties
(where they playacted mommy and daddy
to her stuffed teddy bear), their little game
grew like the coarse hair of her crevices 
to attentive back and forth about his workday.
Instead of pouring her make-believe husband
make-believe tea, now she would pour him 
scotch: “What’s your pleasure this evening?”
She would massage his neck and shoulders
not just to go through the motions as kids do,
but to show that she was loving and skilled 
enough to work at knots with sundry technique, 
that she (like no other) could surrender herself
enough to know his needs as if from within—
prepared, to use the words in her locked diary
regarding a “future king,” “to walk three steps 
behind him, watching his back beyond range
of sword swings. What position more powerful 
for a true Queen?!” He still enforced his duty 
as parent, yes. But when conscience dictated
that he send her up to bed, he would kiss her
on the lips and, falling into her eyes, insinuate
that he was not the one stuck to the vision of her
as still a little girl. “Your mother would kill me,
Rosaline, if she knew I’d kept you up this late.”
 
It was a semi-conscious desire to come (fully) 
into her own as what she was long said to be
(“Daddy’s number one”), and also to salvage 
her family by putting a stop to his cheating, 
that had her wearing her mother’s red lipstick
outdoors. She moved as if her telos, tadpole
to frog, led to replacing her mother. She knew
this was not how things worked. She knew
such thoughts were sinful. Yet whether it be 
trekking reverie miles to bring a special lunch 
to her father in that lipstick, or (for practice) 
smooching classmate boys in that lipstick, 
she could not help but travel step by step 
down that path—a path adults in her life 
always suggested was so sweet (“Those two 
little love birds”); a path adults in her life
long emboldened (calling her, although less 
as her breasts grew, “the lady of the house”). 

And the lady of the house? The fretful waiting
over dinner for him, studied by her children
(one face accusatory, the others sad and afraid
in their empathy); the hard reality in his eyes 
writhing like those of interrogated criminals 
whenever she went to fall into them as before—
these left her raw to the efforts of her eldest, 
who stared back tearless (her scowl menacing
under newly-arched eyebrows) after a smack 
for going out alone to the city for a waxing 
well beyond, so her mother sensed, her face.

“At your age I was just like you,” she declared
from the waiting chair as tiptoe creaks neared
in the dark. But aside from saying “It’s my job 
to keep you safe,” she had no nerve to explore 
the implications, the images from her own past
(like that hairbrush handle lubricated in lard)
and of what could be, hidden by the banality 
of either parental statement. “I know you love
your daddy. But I don’t want you waiting up 
for him anymore. Your sleep is important. 
Daddy and Mommy need our own adult time, 
Sweetie.” Under layers few to none, she knew
that calling herself “Mommy” instead of “I”
and calling Rosaline “Sweetie”—all swaddled 
in a tone appropriate for alphabet learners—
would sting as no physical slap ever could.

2
 
That same night Rosaline’s mother screamed
at her father louder, longer, than even the time
she found her sister laughing on his lap at a bar.
He took it all, as far as the children could hear—
no response to having missed dinner by hours.
“Does this mean,” Rosaline’s sister asked her,
“that Daddy’s gonna divorce us?” “No, Twig,”
Rosaline said. “This heat has us all irritated.
Everything’ll be fine again in the morning.”

Her sister’s whimpers finally caving to sleep, 
she reclined in dark until her mother sobbed 
up the stairs into her room. She tiptoed down
after a count of sixty, her breath held in hope 
that the creaks would not draw her mother out
again. She floated to him in her nightgown 
and massaged his hand at her chest. To her, 
he knew for sure, he was a hero to be adored. 
And for him that truth promised to remain 
through the most seismic changes of Earth.
Still he said, “You have school, mon bijou.” 

She took his fingers to her nostrils. He let her 
keep them there. “Not this again, poking fun
at my smell.” He shook his head, slurring:
“The ladies in this damn house.” She kissed
the fingers, smelling them again. “I’m sorry,” 
she said and sat on his lap. “I need my kiss,”
he said, “then back up to bed.” She kissed him.
“You’ve been drinking,” she said. And then 
he shone a light on what was never to be lit, 
spoiling the game: “Little girls need to mind 
their business. And is that lipstick?” “I’m not 
a little girl,” she said, slithering down his lap,
knees to the rug, sulking in dejection like one.
He put his hand on her head, stroking twice
before it took on full weight with his snores. 

She dozed there too. And in her first dreams 
the slight rise of his groin seemed to guide her
to unzip him. She slowly worked the zipper, 
aware enough to say she was undressing him 
for bed if he scolded. She knew she would go
up and down with her hand, both her hands, 
if she could get it out—that she would kiss it,
lick it, smell it, fall asleep smelling below it. 
 
She reached in, but it all seemed impossible. 
Her goal required nerve she could not muster
beyond fantasy. Her twig arm lactic anyway,
she resigned herself simply to rubbing overtop
his slacks in her semi-sleep, moved by wonder 
at how such effortless motions could warm 
his loins and swell them with life. But then 
she found herself smacked down to the floor,
her left ear ringing. “What is this!” he yelled. 
He had never hit her before. She ran upstairs, 
feeling no longer number one, despite apologies
in a tone indicating his own surprise at himself.
 
3
 
Often enough the truth meets in the middle. 
On the one hand, unlike what she told her sister
to get back at him for that slap (which to her 
felt like rejection from Jesus just before the fall
into hell), and unlike what might be suggested 
by her locking herself in her bedroom refusing 
to speak or to eat with the family, ultimately
asking to stay with her grandmother in Houma,
he did not rub his penis on her lips and tongue.
Born of hurt over drives she did not ask for
(on top of that pivotal smack), it was a story 
she half convinced herself was true. Herself 
framed as rejected by the man she loved most
seemed to her infinitely worse than herself
framed as the victim of his inability to bridle 
desire for his number one. Yes, considering 
the realm of macro bodies and macro motions
alone, she truly was the perpetrator that night. 
And had he not been so stunned and drunk, 
he would have had the restraint not to hit her. 
Cradling her, he would have shooed off shame
in her heart. That was the sort of man he was. 
He would have talked with her that night,
addressing her muddled lusts with empathy—
their father-daughter boundaries healthier 
forever. He would have promised secrecy. 
 
On the other hand, the hormones coursed,
too fresh and potent for sober agency (even 
for her ability, sifting later through images, 
to weave together what exactly happened). 
And propelling the worry that her parents 
were going to divorce (which for her meant 
he was going to divorce her), she was right 
to have sensed, through fecal-cyprine whiffs 
many late nights, his weakness. She was right 
to have sensed, through his adoration of her
and his allowing her to continue adoring him
even as she blossomed, that he was walking 
that same perilous path as her. She was right,
in fact, to have sensed, through the stiffening 
heat in his lap (and not just that one night),
that he did lust for her—that he really did, 
although she knew not the specifics, fantasize 
in the least her pushing through any gagging, 
her saliva shining him erect as never before; 
her baby hand at last, as her mouth suckled
his root vulnerabilities in the blind instinct
of an infant at breast, adult enough to stay
furious throughout his moonlit effusions. 
Too narrow it would be to call her “a liar.”

*This narrative poem is unpublished. It is loosely inspired by—and, I feel, both amplifies and expands the meaning of—one of my favorite films: Eve’s Bayou.

Photo of Meagan Good, playing the Rosaline-esque character Cisely, in the 1997 film Eve’s Bayou