That CAMELLIA STAFFORD

Camellia Stafford

That

I’m wearing a cross body bag with a chain strap that bisects my breasts diagonally. The bag rests on my hip.

What you got in there? He asks that like I’d have anything worthy of carriage. I want to say that

if I unzip it a flume of blood will gush out and saturate him. Instead, I’m embarrassed.

I don’t tell him the keys inside it are a weapon I’ve pushed between the fingers of my clenched fist

in the back of taxis that followed the one with the driver who said, if you were alone you wouldn’t be paying, whatever that meant.

It’s not all about what I carry in this bag across my body: a shoal of pearls bustling, a tissue from the pack.

It’s also the reassurance of the chain’s cool metal loops crossing my palm that give me something to hang onto.