Brooke Stanish

Pool Party

Grandmother told me i
didn’t look anything like
myself at all when i wore 

my first bikini: hot pink
with yellow stripes &

i guess this was the ending 

because there was Father
laughing: no way you’re going
out in shorts that tight!

but they were nearly mid-
thigh, after all: nothing wrong,

i thought before i thought 

& i thought & then, of course,
there was the father behind me
one afternoon in the Walmart 

with his own two daughters
& he must’ve been staring

because the girls slapped him

hard: you’re looking at her legs!
& how could i not be proud
of my thighs that day—& only

12 years old! so, of course,
when they said i was almost

beautiful, i replied: well tell me 

where the ugly is, & i’ll chop
it all off, which, of course,
they didn’t believe at first, 

until i grabbed Mother’s good
knife & pushed it deep into

my nose—

don’t act so unstable,
they said, you’ll dirty the
linoleum! they didn’t 

notice the blood shoving
itself from my nostril,

branching at my cupid’s bow. 

before this, i swear:
there was nothing wrong
with me at all. 

at the pool party, now
flies surround me as if

they know something

i cannot

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Brooke Stanish is a poet, writer and PhD student at the University of Southern Mississippi. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University where she was the recipient of the David Madden Award for Fiction. Her work appears in Bloodletter, Sans.PRESS, After Dinner Conversation, Josephine Quarterly and elsewhere.