House of Joyce Leslie

By Monica McClure

If I could be anyting

I would be a rich white girl

and I am almost halfway there

I straightened my hair before it rained

Now all I can do is pray

I don't mean that figuratively

I'm living in this logocentrism

Where did I get these Spanish thighs

I was crying in the food court

because I'm afraid

of the spiritual anorexia that I crave

I wrote out a prayer in reportorial style

like a good Protestant

Obsessed with achieving

the androgyny of my time

I cut when my boyfriend said

I had the figure

of an average Hispanic girl

so what was I so upset about

I decided to try liposuction at home

So much splendor is owed

to dysmorphia and a fucked perspective

like those Gothic spires poking the heavens

that someone just thought up like

can we tap this broomstick

on ethereal marble floors or what

can we really do

Copyright Credit: Monica McClure, "House of Joyce Leslie" from Tender Data. Copyright © 2015 by Monica McClure. Reprinted by permission of Birds, LLC.

Source: Tender Data (Birds, LLC, 2015)