Blooming Late, Talking Dirty

At 15, I was two padded bras, layered,
masquerading as breasts
not blooming late but
a thistle knot: unyielding.

At night I’d steal away
and call phone sex lines
hoping there was enough intimacy
in this world for a thistle girl

there were those oozy voices
one minute, thirty seconds
I liked them
they were achy bloody sticky, felt like friends

they taught me to think about what
to say for sex
harder deeper squeeze me drown it
I never talked back, but I think they could hear my thorny wishes:

give me something
touch me.

~~~

Rita Mookerjee’s poetry is forthcoming in Lavender Review, Sorority Mansion Review, and Spider Mirror Journal. Her critical work has been featured in the Routledge Companion of Literature and Food, the Bloomsbury Handbook to Literary and Cultural Theory, and the Bloomsbury Handbook of Twenty-First Century Feminist Theory. She currently teaches ethnic minority fiction and women’s literature at Florida State University where she is a PhD candidate specializing in contemporary Caribbean literature with a focus on queer theory. Her current research deals with the fiction of Edwidge Danticat.