See Through Girls

When second-grade Brendan told me

he could see through my underpants

with his cardboard X-ray Spex, I said

I didn’t care. My bones wouldn’t tell

how I really felt about pink-sweater Carol

and go-go boots Joan, who made me

unpopular in ten cafeteria seconds

by mocking my clumsiness with the tray.

I’d seen real X-rays, my private ulna ghosts

in a gray nebula, and the darkness of the crack

where all the pain spilled out.

I was no see-through girl, and neither illusion

nor technology could reveal

the scribbled secrets in my diary. 

First published in Slink Chunk