By Natasha Rao
I lived on top of the roof, staring at the Jehovah’s Witness
turrets. I lived making up metaphors about the moon
while Bobby balanced a boombox above his shoulders
and squirrels shyly swallowed the spiked heads
of passionflowers, pilfering grape tomatoes and averting
my gaze. I watched the other girls and made notes of
how to be more like that, how to wear a shirt that hangs off
the left shoulder, how to align my body with everything
I’ve ever wanted. I loved when, at the wine store,
it turned out they already had my name in the system.
It’s true there are so many versions of a self,
sometimes one forgets how to walk like the other.
In swimmy reflections or in glasses clean, I watched myself
enjoy being seen, witnessed my evolution into
loud-laughing, cross-legged, can you play the song that
reminds us all where we have been? Inside me is a girl opening
a red locker, unable to envision so many glistening eyes
listening when she opens her mouth. Here I am
with my hair up, socked foot on your leg. Falling
in love again. Let’s toast to pizza. Let’s order the moon!
With you at last I climb down from my watchtower
and step into the whitelit present tense.
Natasha Rao, "Witness" from Latitude . Copyright © 2021 by Natasha Rao. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
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