Joanna Cooper

Tapping

All the sadnesses of childhood. Being pigeon-toed and loved, dirty blond and loved. The nervous tapping, the counting of steps. Free lunch tokens at school. But listen—I was once in a dance recital. It may have been over in a blur. I may have forgotten my steps or stumbled through them. But even now I love the costume and how someone paid to rent it for me. There is a photograph of a child in a showgirl outfit. Hair up. Ringlets. Green and white striped satin bodice. Fringe. Fishnets.

put on your riding hood

Everything leaned in, the colors harder to make out. Darkening

leaves and roots, moss and stone, dark water, glinting.

A kind of humming and holding

breath around her. Something wanted her face down,

breast down among the rotting leaves. The water like a dead thing

and a calling. And she began to know, a shade descending over her eyes,

darker blue descending, a film of knowing, a pulse in her palms

and low in her stomach, slow pull and turn.

And that is how she met the thing that was in her.

Joanna Cooper holds a PhD from Temple University and teaches literature and writing at Fordham University. Her work has appeared in the Cortland Review and Pleiades, and she has a poetry chapbook entitled The Crocodile Lady and Other Poems. Joanna is currently working on a book-length poetry manuscript, tentatively titled How We Were Strangers.