Even now, the girl I was shows up, open-handed.
I thought I solved her. After that first wrong love at 12 years old,
that time when boys became circled in red in a way they hadn’t
been before. I remember the first one — Jimmy in science class.
Smooth loafers and confidence hum. I pinned my heart to him
and felt it splay open like a frog, dissected, unwhole. Begin
of the spin where I’d leave one piece of me with a boy, get hurt
and take the remains on to the next. Circle and circle
and by 15, I was too this, too that. Maybe not pretty enough,
maybe not the right hair, and so I spun myself some more.
Inked my lips with yeses I didn’t mean and prayed to be noticed
by that tough guy who sat in the back of math class, his biceps
like a forbidden geography. Every day he’d ask me to give him
my homework. Later, he’d corner me by the lockers, spider
his calloused fingers under my blouse. I gave him that, too.
Now, thirty, forty years later, and some days the circle starts again.
Most times now it’s just a small thing — a spark touch
from a stranger on a bus, a cab driver pulling up
in the rain. But it’s enough for me to feel the spin,
and I wait for it to sputter to a stop. But I can’t help
but wonder how many times do I have to break my own heart?
How many times can love take me, tornado? And now when
I see the spinning girl I was, when she shows up, unasked for,
I don’t  a place anymore for her at my table. It seems
to be okay with her. Her hand still open, she reaches
for a fork, a plate. She assures me she will be happy with scraps.