Romanian Woman

By. Clara Burghelea

If you are a female firstborn,
your ears are pierced at birth,
though earrings may be taken away
at five, when you walk on your father
make out with your mother’s cousin.

If you are a girl sewn into a dress,
taught to apologize for breathing
heavily when the stiches break
your ribs, or is it your brother’s fists,
metal taste on your tongue. Again.

If menstrual blood drips on
your brand-new macramé shoes
and you worry more for your
mother’s lithe hands that crocheted
for weeks than your shame.

If you are a pregnant mother,
close to term, swollen ankles,
spider varicose veins to prove it,
swallow your tears, grandma says,
it is a given for us. Womb fails you.

If you are a house made of cedar,
and your beams whisper at night,
you wake up one morning, fresh
as a blue tilt and decide to scorch it.
On the pavement, all ghosts in line.

Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, HeadStuff, Waxwing and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other is scheduled for publication in 2019 with Dos Madres Press. She is the current poetry editor of The Blue Nib.