by Marisa P. Clark

I could understand, my father said,
if you were watching John Travolta.
He’d caught me, hand jammed
into jeans, my teenaged body
stretched long, wriggling

on the carpet in the den, door open,
TV tuned in to The Wizard of Oz.
He’d happened down the hall and caught
a glimpse, walked on, and doubled back
to scold. I couldn’t have said what trouble

Dorothy was in, what traveling companions
she’d befriended by then, whether she
skipped along the Yellow Brick Road
or wore the ruby slippers. Had the tornado
even swept her up yet, and her little dog too?

The whirlwind of my imagination had,
in fact, dreamed up the image of a favorite
movie star: lips luscious, breasts bare,
long legs circling my hips. I couldn’t tell
my father this, or explain how my mind

carried me away and my body followed
like a devoted dog. I let him believe
the movie had stirred my need.
He left me properly chastened, my world
drab again, drained of Technicolor.

 

Marisa P. Clark is the author of the poetry collection BIRD (Unicorn Press, 2024). Her prose and poetry appear in Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Epiphany, Foglifter, Prairie Fire, Rust + Moth, Sundog Lit, Texas Review, and elsewhere. Best American Essays 2011 recognized her creative nonfiction among its Notable Essays. A queer writer, she grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, came out in Atlanta, Georgia, and lives in New Mexico with two parrots, a standard poodle, and whatever wildlife and strays chance to visit.