the woman's club

stage light body of a 17 year-old,
let's talk about who you
were 5 years ago. let's talk about
2 days before high school
graduation & my sand paper knuckles
& my novel printing tongue.
i'd wake up each day before school
to write a page of fiction, obelisk built
in front of my ikea desk, she believes
routines-- it's irish catholic prayer.
someone, someone please tell her that
she's not going to publish a book
tomorrow or drop out of college like
Salinger. tell her there's 
nothing heroic about the novel
other than the stubbornness of the
binding of old books at the library--
Dante's Inferno printed 1923 in her back pack,
refusing to let go of its pages despite 
fingernails yellowing, despite the tears of 
hell beneath the stage where i find her
sitting at kutztown high school's 
award ceremony. i expected to receive something
in literature, seeing as that was what
i prayed to. i sent angels 
to new york city to write the bodies 
of skyscrapes like all young girls must do. 
i made saints of dead men, plucking
rib bones & hope one would grow breasts.
i held seances in my bedroom: 
Fitzgerald & Hemingway drinking heavily in the corner
while i'd ask them for advice. they gave nothing,
laughed at all my inquires until they 
faded away, leaving bookmarks on the dresser.

the award i got that night was from 
the women's club of kutztown which surprised
me because i didn't know that we had one &
if we did there seemed no reason the award should
go to me. back then i wouldn't call myself
a feminist. there was something about
the word that scared me-- the inherent fire
of it. i would tell my mother that i'd
thought about it & she'd roll her eyes.
i avoided the term since. i googled 
"the women's club of kutztown" & found 
nothing. there's no remnant of
them to be found. it makes me think that
they're some secret organization, meeting
in basements & sneaking in the firehouse 
at night when the lion's club is done.
maybe they wear lavender cloaks & 
drink absinthe from crystal glasses. 
i imagine them, scouring the students of 
kutztown high school class of 2014. i have a hard time
imagining why or how they would choose 
young me other than a divine premonition--
their leader, with her long grey hair &
crystal ball consulted with the great ones,
with Gertrude Stein & Audre Lorde &
Simone de Beauvoir all of who were skeptical
of me, they suggested waiting for
someone more promising,
pointing to my lack of appreciation for
the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God as
a bad omen. it would be three more years until 
i took a class in feminist theory & only two
more years before i'd shake off my womanhood
entirely. 
one is not born but rather becomes
a man (forgive me). 
the award was just an envelope
with 500$ that i probably spent on 
the summer.
someday i'll find them though, i'll
robe myself in lavender & step out 
at dusk & known deep inside me
their meeting place.
when i arrive they'll scowl & shake their
heads & tell me that i'm somehow both 
too early & too late