Trish Shishikura
ST. BENEDICT’S SCHOOL FOR PROPER LADIES
My uniform crept below my knees—
ivory blouse, round collars, an odd hem
that tucked out of my skirt whenever
I moved or played or cartwheeled.
We would lift our skirts, pull the blouses back in,
repeat. This is not a war about my country yet.
When 9/11 happened, all the girls at school
sat around a single TV, blouses unbuttoned,
legs naked. It was 38 degrees. Our skirts pooled
around us. Elsewhere, birds scattering over
debris. Meanwhile, in the auditorium,
we looked like a board game.
Imagine the first gasp of battle,
as the sky unveils itself an eternal blue
and you spend days waiting for planes,
listening to helicopters tear through the city.
War arrives when your ears begin to hear
phantoms before seeing them.
We were convinced our city was next.
Who would War retrieve first?
Hidden at the back of the closet—
behind stacks of towels, watches, cologne:
videotapes of grown-ups sliding tongues
into each other’s mouths, tasting
secrets dripping from their private parts.
Research suggests that current events
manifest more symptoms related to trauma.
The news reports on skinship,
the scent of a culpable afternoon
with vials of white musk, a soiled bed, stones.
According to art, trauma changes color,
resembles quartz, quivers when touched.
Light slithered into the room we were in
where we lay, damp air kissing our skin.
These days, phantoms follow me to sleep
as they did, the first time I touched myself.
Perhaps it has always been a war, body
against body. War is here to retrieve us.
He asks,
what are you afraid of?