Girl Spin

Even now, the girl I was shows up, open-handed.
I thought I solved her. After that first wrong love at 12 years old,
that time when boys became circled in red in a way they hadn’t
been before. I remember the first one — Jimmy in science class.
Smooth loafers and confidence hum. I pinned my heart to him
and felt it splay open like a frog, dissected, unwhole. Begin
of the spin where I’d leave one piece of me with a boy, get hurt
and take the remains on to the next. Circle and circle
and by 15, I was too this, too that. Maybe not pretty enough,
maybe not the right hair, and so I spun myself some more.
Inked my lips with yeses I didn’t mean and prayed to be noticed
by that tough guy who sat in the back of math class, his biceps
like a forbidden geography. Every day he’d ask me to give him
my homework. Later, he’d corner me by the lockers, spider
his calloused fingers under my blouse. I gave him that, too.
Now, thirty, forty years later, and some days the circle starts again.
Most times now it’s just a small thing — a spark touch
from a stranger on a bus, a cab driver pulling up
in the rain. But it’s enough for me to feel the spin,
and I wait for it to sputter to a stop. But I can’t help
but wonder how many times do I have to break my own heart?
How many times can love take me, tornado? And now when
I see the spinning girl I was, when she shows up, unasked for,
I don’t set a place anymore for her at my table. It seems
to be okay with her. Her hand still open, she reaches
for a fork, a plate. She assures me she will be happy with scraps.

Francine Witte’s flash fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. Most recently, her stories have been in Best Small Fictions and Flash Fiction America. Her latest flash fiction book is RADIO WATER (Roadside Press.) Her upcoming collection of poetry, Some Distant Pin of Light is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She lives in NYC. Visit her website francinewitte.com.