Faith Thompson

THE LESSON

How old was I the first time I stood
in the shower and looked at my
young body—warm skin and widening hips—
and planned how not to be raped?

Eight? Ten? Eleven?

I had elaborately violent plans,
measure and countermeasures.

One thing, though, I believed from the beginning—
that if I could—and it was an “if,” I knew that—
   I would make him kill me
      before I let him take me.
I would lean, lean, lean toward that knife,
   toward that bullet.

            Because I was a lily, a white day lily,
               and it was my office—my commission
               and care—to keep it that way.

Thinking back now on all the deaths
I willingly submitted to, standing in that shower,
it occurs to me to wonder who taught me
to value my hymen above my life.

But who am I kidding?
I know exactly which church basement
I learned that lesson in.

II.

From God, I did not have
a single word
upon the matter.

But once, at fifteen, sixteen years,
   I was kneeling in the salty shallows
   of the Atlantic—
              fingers playing, sunlight glinting strong
              against the silver of my promise ring,
              fitted quite securely
              around the third finger of my left hand.
              A ring I had received
              with vows before old men.

And—truly, truly—as I knelt,
   a wave came rushing suddenly
   across my hands—and snatched the ring away—
   swallowed it in depth and darkness.

I know whose Hand it was that sent that wave.

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