When I was in fifth grade

I learned how to cartwheel,

Preparing my body for cheerleading try-outs,

Trying to become one of the chosen ones.

But I wasn’t blonde or petite,

Rather taller than anyone else,

Especially the boys who shied away

From “The Amazon” with crooked teeth.

I learned to smile

After my teeth learned the proper posture.

My mother never wore skirts like all the other

Slim mothers,

But instead draped her body in flowered housecoats

To remind her of the flowers she never planted.

She fixed my lunch everyday and

Picked me up after school.

Two days after try-outs when my name

Was written in invisible ink

Beneath Tiffany and Lauren’s names,

I learned the price of all I had never been.

Now, all these years later,

My daughter is playing with Barbie

And even in second grade she sees the cheerleaders.

I’ve found her holding pom pons,

Dancing down a Wal-mart aisle.

Then I tell her to put them away and pray

She learns to forget.

Already her teeth come in crooked. 

She will have braces, too,

And she is the tallest in her class.

Perhaps one day she’ll forgive me

For not knowing all of Britney Spears’ songs

And for not allowing her to wear make-up yet

Just as I have forgiven my mother

For sending me flowers when I really wanted

Them to come from a boy.

(c) 2004 Maria Rachel Hooley.  All Rights Reserved.


And wearing flowered housedresses

Outside our home.