Ronna Magy

What Mothers and Daughters Talk About In Fitting Rooms

Mom, maybe I’ll find you in lingerie’s fitting room again. Pink

curtains. Saleslady’s plastic tape circling my 12-year-old’s flesh.

You repeating Honey, stand still. Let her measure. Do you remember

we talked about garter belts? Sticky menstrual pads? Looped rubber

snaps? Sweaty women waving paper fans in July heat. And I asked

Where does the blood come from? How long does it last?

Wear pink lipstick, you advised. Polish your nails. Dab on blue

eye shadow. You never know.

We’d laugh now at 6th grade girls watching psychedelic pink vaginas

flashing auditorium’s screen. Paisley sperm fishtailing upstream.

Zygote cells dividing one into two, then again. Mom, do you remember

you handed me a blue book about sex? Never answered how

I came into my body. Yours. Not even that picture on the cover

made sense.

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Ronna Magy’s recent writings appear in New Verse News, SWWIM Every Day, Women in a Golden State, Cholla Needles, Made From Midnight, Rise Up Review, The Los Angeles Press, Persimmon Tree, Sinister Wisdom and Writer’s Resist. An alumna of the Napa Valley Writers Conference, Ronna’s curated readings of seasoned queer women poets for the Outwrite and Circa Queer Histories Festivals. She’s a retired ESL instructor, textbook author.