Kate Falvey

which Grandma forced her to wear beneath an undershirt trimmed with a pink rosette.

The boys pinged the tell-tale metal hooks which rippled visibly beneath her gym-class middy, the flimsy undershirt pointing out her budding mortification.

II. She opted for the inserts, skin stretched from puberty to matron in an agonizing trice. After she was sliced, the sites were heaving with phantom breasts, swinging with luminous iridescent cells and ample memories of infant ears that were, indeed, like shells, and the wilder swell of nipples raked with sighs and sudden teeth, the clamping into lycra, the whispered cruise of silken sheath, and the itch of winter wool chill with sheer exertion and immutable strong will.

III. Her daughter’s first bra was bought by an intrusive, sneaky friend.

The ritual choice and sizing, the defining moment of the need

wrested from bittersweet intimacy by a heedless interloper.

Her daughter bounced in dangling a froth of ivory lace and Lolita-padded pinks,

a smoky quartz confection wired for hijinks,

a gauzy azure whisper of come-hither,

prinked with manufactured sultriness – all for a woman over forty aiming for demure but hitting overkill.

Her daughter didn’t understand the grimace and the sigh – the years gone by, the years to come, the leave-taking, the lies –

the treacheries, indignities, evasions, and repressions –the cossetting of status quos, succumbing to aggressions –

And now the mother is accused by her bra-fanatic grown-up queer femme daughter,

of making mountains out of molehills and quagmires from fresh water.

I’m a grind-stoned cowgirl. Lucia Cascioli

Ride ’Em?

Watch me ride.