Only Children

In a group of girls heading home 
	from a day trip to the city,
		the one with the biggest shopping bag 
			also has a boxer’s nose 
				and the shadow of a bruise
					under her left eye.

			I’d like to show her the Polaroid of me 
		beaming astride a rented grey pony 
	on my sixth birthday, 
and say nothing.

She can already see 
	how my shoulders hunch,
		how I flinch sometimes 
			even at my lover’s touch,
				how some things change
					and some do not.

-Published in Persephone’s Daughters, Issue 3.