measured (this is what she learned)

measured (this is what she learned)

I have swallowed these words like bullets.

“Crossing the Atlantic,” Anne Sexton

this is what she learned

there would be a certain amount of time

(and that would be forever)

when she would be watched

a circumspect gaze of judgment

that measured her against all other women

and left her in relief like a leaf in granite

this is how she held her head

this is how her knees touched

this is how shoes raised her heels

so that the arch of her back slightly turned

the smoothness of her skin in the light

and the fullness of her cleavage exposed

could all be dutifully captured in photographs

as the clock counted up and then spiraled down

and no one had ever once looked at her

•

this is what she knew

he would take her bare feet into his hands and lap

pressing his thumbs into the arch of each one

them together there alone he would close his eyes

while she read the words she wrote that were she