Betsy Robin Schwartz

I don't talk much about it.

It's too many to remember

like bringing back my bra-buying

trips to shopping malls, or

recounting every pair of panties

stained with menstrual blood.

It's in Every Woman's past.

I know of no woman unmolested

before the age of majority, and

all the women I know

know of none, and

all the men I know don't

know this before I tell them,

but—

I don't talk about it much.

It's too much like: snagged pantyhose

chipped fingernails

razor-nicked shins

high-heeled walking

hearing wolf whistles

plucking eye-brows\(em

and not at all like a total eclipse.