Baby Girls All Over the Place

Gigi Edwards 

I tried to bury you. Instead
I dug up pink azaleas,
loamy brown dirt clinging to petals.
The more I pried and shook the bush with my shovel,
the more pink flowers got unearthed.
 
We stepped off the curb
to make sure the vehicle was
still there, and it pulled away,
our purses inside: mine lime green
and bubble-gum pink.
To get them back
We had to call car service.
It was before cell phones.
The man I spoke to was fat and bald
and kept pawing my body.
Who were you, my friend?
 
I tried to pass for a yellow troll.
I even wore a conehead.
They knew I was a fraud.
“You don’t have these!” they cried
in ecstasy, clawing my arm with their fingernails.
More sharp, biting pain, same as when my mother
turned into a pair of scissors and cut off my head
all because I yelled at her.
 
Only after I became the grownup
did I feel comfortable in school.
The world was ending. I knew what to do.
I led the children up the stairs
and took them through the trapdoor to the roof.
We stayed all night. Nothing was visible
in the fog. I held the children close.
We even slept a bit.
In the morning, help came.
 
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Gigi Edwards is still recovering from growing up with the name Georgine Maniscalchi, earning her B.A. at Harvard and spending a year at The New Yorker as a Vedette. She has taught English and writing at every level from seventh grade to senior citizens. Her nonfiction has appeared in Italian Americana, The Sun Magazine and various Rhode Island publications. This spring’s open enrollment 92Y class was her first foray into poetry.