token 4th wave ode to my stretch marks

token 4th wave feminist tribute to my stretch marks
or
what they don't tell you:
-------------

they will fade.
first blood’s red
then pink
rose
silver

boys get them, too.

they come back.
deepen,
move with you
diminish
rise and fall like the tide,
daily scratches on a cave wall

Nobody good
will turn from them.

Not in locker rooms,
slumber parties,
fittings, yoga class,
the bedroom
your local gym

The fading light softens
our skin transluscent and
he draws his head down
towards mine, eyes creased
with worry and wonder—
Did they hurt? He asks and I
bite back a laugh at his somberness,
fingers eking out mysteries
from these divine/benign welts

No, never, I whisper, smiling
though everything else
did—these are reminders
of those growing seasons
that stretching and soft breaking
and melding together again
like beachside salt-water taffy

fit into too-neat wax paper
left in the sun to weep
cherry tears, melting in
some boys mouth,
bluntly spit out—

until you realize as that first
real lover
kisses each scar

that jock was too young for you anyway, you really like girls, father was a terrible communicator, boys are really hot, romance is everywhere, marriage is overrated, mother was right, poetry means ecstasy, buy it if it’s on sale:
the universe cheers for you
if you just close your lips
and listen to the creaking sound of growth:

the way their eyes widen as you unbutton.
one of your sighs.
His fingers on you, lightly, again
that astonished murmur
as you lose yourselves to lust
Can’t believe you didn’t feel
any of this—Oh, sweetheart
you have no idea—

they are just scars, to him. Yours,
which make them all the more
wonderous, but still. Simply
what was once whole.

One woman called them her minnows,
a flock of ever-fleeing silver
spinning through her body.
Another, fingerprints
place-markers on hips,
breasts, back, for where
her wife’s hands should be because
partnerships means sharing the dead weight
you thought you’d be carrying
your whole life alone,
sharing of the skin-gifts that
with a mirror, a certain skirt or tie,
made your eyes flash and
your heart grin,
limbs that made life with yourself
a little less lonely.

For now he traces the
small weights of my breasts—
pears beneath the skin
new-soft with spring but marked
with weather and wear—
he’s still hesitant,
heart measuring my words against
the nerve-endings, surface area
high school anatomy classes
and filched copies of Maxim

One day he’ll see his
bus driver’s stomach swell
like summer berries, her
soft smile as she punches his ticket.

he’ll study
his elder patient’s shoulders
his spine peppered with dimples
stretch marks from a 10th grade
growth spurt, pretend to
test his spine as they talk basketball—

he’ll remember at 17
the cramped back of the station wagon
how every girl’s scars sparkled
under the yellow streetlamp.
her body slack from want and innocence

the same way his wife
rolls out of their bed, unaware
of the graceful coordination between
solid calves and sloping neck and
milk-heavy breasts—
worries weighed in their lank hair
and sleep-soft eyes as she
stretches, nude,
life-scarred body extended in desire
for the top shelf,
an old college t-shirt.

he’ll realize in the waiting room
the steamy frontseat
amidst the warm, worn sheets
and you won’t have to
spell the words
with his fingers
on your stomach

you won’t
have to tell
him a thing—