Kathryn Nuernberger

Someone used to love me. Someone
used to see me.

When I was a mother I sometimes told my daughter who loves sea creatures little stories before bed and they always began, “When I was a girl and lived in the ocean . . .”

When I was a wife and a mother and a responsible member of the electorate and was remembering but not telling how I was once a zombie-mermaid girl,

if 1 in 5 of the women I pass on the street have been raped, how many in 5 of the men I pass on the street have raped

and I thought, he’ll tell me the air is full of words that are ideas for lies.

now I know I hate that face. It’s the most perfectly wrong face and I want to break the barnacle of it.

A Man called me a man-hater once. I didn’t hate men before, but I did after.

Before, a man made me dolorous, now A Man is invigorating. Thanks, I thank you for this.

and what

you didn’t learn in health class is everything

Remembering makes

my chest hurt with flapping and repeating

geometry.