Bodega | Girl in Five Parts

I. Girl as Planet Girl

I peel off a scab to see underneath my skin,
the maggots do not surprise me. So sick
and so smart, I’m all indigo veins and watching. A big, fat
planet, I bite back, I come undone.

II. Girl as Adult Girl

comes undone. Girl in me unzips,
a sick planet. I am my mother’s
big girl. I ride my bike with eyes closed, no

hands, in the dark. Other peoples’ problems
in my lungs. If Queen Ann’s lace wants to grow
by your mailbox, let her. Love her

common poison. I fill a notebook with night
and am surprised when I wake up

next to the day’s ordinary color. Some part of my life
is always ending. How bright and horrible
is childhood! Little nightmares that never left,
they live in my never mind.

III. Girl as City of New York

I am surprised when I wake up with eyelids
like sticky gates. I wonder, where in Manhattan lives

my heart? Did it fall out of someone’s purse
on the 6 train? The plant store on 10^th street?
Surly somewhere green.

The subway is just cityveins. You transfer
at Union Square, you’re always making
connections. You can’t hide

a skyscraper. Girl, my girl, you can’t cover up beauty
this big. I’m a swimming city
and one scary bitch. A mother

octopus with three hearts, pumping blue blood
to my nine brains.

IV. Girl as Scary Woman

My dad says Shirley Jackson reminds him of his mother
and sister and he asks is that why you love her? I say

all my favorite things scare me.

Women who keep dead flies and loose tonsils
in glass jars, let the bat make a home in the attic. Oh,
what a peach pit does to the back of my neck!

Metal dental utensils. Aunt Sharon
only hexed a man once. All my favorite women bad
daughters, cluck like hens, keep the myrrh smoking.

Mostly Gemini or otherwise twofaced. Selfish or otherwise
liars, all of them. Most of them dead or otherwise
unavailable.

V. Girl as Staring Contest with Space

This girl, this song, this touch, a blue slap
of vocal chords. I scream at the universe like she’s my sister.
She is my sister. When I look in the mirror, I see my sister.
Her star-freckles, her constellations.

All this time I was trying

to tap into a world beyond the veil, I was trying
to connect to my ancestors, scary
women. It turns out, that world is just my bedroom. I dream

under a veil of stars in a city that doesn’t care if I go
missing. Days I imagine night, and nights I dance
with girls, bad daughters, made of dead

universe, decked with scabs and glittery

maggot
hearts.

114 – April 2022

By Mara Beneway

Girl in Five Parts