Recollections From The Poet’s Training Bra
Before me,
you dropped out
of ballet class, tired from slouching,
hiding what the plie-ing tweens
already knew:
you had boobs.
Evidenced by your fourth
grade Disneyland vacation photos—
your torso whooping—
Hey look! I’m a
woman.
You needed me
for at least a year before
finally allowing your mother
to take you shopping to find me, frill-free,
flopping on a rack in a fluorescent-lit
Sears. I trained
you for skills
you’d
never need:
reconciling unnecessary
dangling straps no mature version
of me ever possessed. Bury them
in the polyester utilitarian
uni-cup? Or cut
them off and cross
your fingers your shoulders
would never change sizes?
I hazed you.
Preparation
for a lifetime
wondering whether
anything you were supposed
to wear or do or prove or be as a woman
had any point.
I tried to keep you secure.
Failed when that grown-up driving a vintage
mustard Chevy pulled up beside your Huffy, poked
his head out the window to say nice tits, on your way to the park
to hang with Monica Magnison, proprietor of the right currency:
dishwater blond spiral perm, lake cabin, ideal-sized thighs,
and a flat chest. For at least one day, owning me
made you an expert to Monica’s mom
who, while you picked black olives
off pizza casserole in her dining
room, asked, Where does your
mother buy your training bras?
For once,
it was Monica who left
the table, embarrassed, foreshadowing
the sixth grade when her underlings demanded
you find a new lunch spot, leaving you standing
alone, protruding above the cafeteria plane
like conspicuous developments shaping
a baggy cotton t-shirt. Many friends,
then two body parts, then one you.
A first lesson in owning
the parts of yourself
you resist.
Hanging Your Name On The Wall
Maybe it was our tenth date. We mixed
low brow with high: cheeseburgers and an art gallery.
Some women, when they make love,
withdraw from their own pleasure
to appear sexy for a man.
I don’t do that in bed, but to the detriment
of my own enjoyment,
I did try too hard
to look adorable,
seated across from you while eating
delicate bites of a Shackburger.
Later at the gallery, a woman
wearing leopard print loafers compliments
my color-blocked outfit: gold corduroy skirt,
burnt orange tights, red suede boots. Your face
reads her praise
as a five-star Yelp review.
Neither she nor you know I bought
ten skirts after our first date just to prove
I was enough.
You linger
in front of an exhibit—used envelopes covered
in black ink drawings of human silhouettes—
the first time you say my name to me.
Valerie, see this?
You point at these unassuming
common objects elevated into art.
Oh wow, JIM. I echo.
Saying our names feels
like speaking a new language for the first time.
Like we got caught talking shit. Except
we were gossiping to each other.
Not like how it feels now to say your name.
To my therapist. Over and over.
Or defensive when I say it to my mother.
Or like when I say it to Tessa, every Saturday morning on the trail,
trying to sound aloof.
It feels different from how it sounds now,
in a poem about you. A name
I would never
choose to put in
a poem:
Jim.
Unsophisticated.
One-syllable.
Kind of a stupid name.
The name of a man you call to find out if you qualify
to refinance. A Jim sells tires,
or helps you change one, without instilling fear.
It is not the name of a person exalted
into ubiquity like Starry Night coffee tumblers
the entire population of everywhere seems to carry.
Not the name of a person whose memory hangs
out for seasons like an abandoned
wasp’s nest under an awning.
Valerie Nies (she/her/hers) is a comedian, writer, and gluten enthusiast whose writing has been featured in McSweeney’s, Reductress, and Oddball Magazine. Find her in Austin, Texas, scanning WebMD. She’s also on Twitter/IG @valerieknees and at valerienies.com.