Sarah Sgro

sarah-sgro-pages-23-241.png[Whatever information women possess]
from Without Them I Am Still A Mother

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Whatever information women possess of their own bodies.1

I hold J’s body to my body & there is no revelation. For J’s body is no copy of my body. For we are borderlands with disparate anatomies.

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The clitoral body & the desires of the chaste friend.

I’m depressed so I take Xanax 2 mg & you’re depressed so you do not want sex. We watch TV because an image moving is a generative act. We watch a plot unfold & then rebuild after the screen goes black. My clit hangs like a grandpa clock. My pussy smooth but for this ample clot.

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The figure of  the tribade is represented as the outgrowth of a monstrous bodily morphology, insofar as she functions more generally as a metaphor for excessive and unruly female desire.

When we are at the party making out against my kitchen wall, I am a jock unfurling my impressive musculature unto J. I have unhitched the bra of J beneath a v-neck blouse in public space. When we are driving home, I don a hat & walk J to J’s door. I am a cowboy demonstrating celebrated valor. I drape my cape across J’s shoulders.

J says that’s some gay shit & she’s right. Behold the macroclitoride! The tommie! Female husband to my female bride! My clit balloons. My clit grows like a mushroom patch, baby clits germinating on my thighs.

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What it means to be a lesbian, of course, depends on what it means to make love.

Your clit is tiny waiting to be found. Your clit the classical pursuit of pearl inside its shell. This doesn’t mean you’re delicate; it’s just the way you’re made. I slide a finger back & forth inside you as to penetrate. My clit a micro-dick erect. My clit an oaf who cannot
hide. The shame of rubbing is you cannot give me what I want until I beg.

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1 Italicized language from Valerie Traub’s book The Renaissance of  Lesbianism in Early Modern England.

Sarah Sgro lives in Oxford, Mississippi. Currently, she serves as Poetry Editor for the Yalobusha Review, co-hosts the Broken English Reading Series, and reads poetry submissions for Muzzle. She is from New York and previously worked as an editorial assistant for Guernica. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Offing, DREGINALD, Cloud Rodeo, Tagvverk, Muzzle,  TYPO, glitterMOB, Deluge and other journals. Her chapbook Without Them I Am Still A Mother is forthcoming in Summer 2017 from Letter [r] press.