The Holy Sacrament of Repression

I am a child convinced I am a worm.

This alarms people.

I am given a rosary

to guide me. Told I am

not a worm. Told I am a girl. I am a girlchild who is told

I should use the beads

to busy my hands.

But I am too busy

being a worm. Too busy saving other worms from every shallow

driveway pool, the jewelry

of God seething

on a dented bumper.

I am a worm told they are a girl. I am told that when I cast aside

the rosary on the bumper,

I am disappointing

some boy named Jesus

who loves me. I am told this more frequently with age. With age,

I notice the other worms

who are primed

to be wary of the worm

they are. All of us more human every day. I discover

my clit. I realize other

people have them—little

hooded worms

lost in their puddles. Little hooded worms I could

busy my hands with,

could save. I am told

that there are boys

out there, men, Jesus and otherwise, who will love me

under a few conditions.

I am reminded that I am

not a worm, not a boy

allowed to play in the puddle. I am a girl who is young

enough, desperate

enough for goodness

that I believe

suffering is the only way there. I get good

at ignoring all the lost

worms, each of us

more woman every day.

With age, with breasts, with the budding threat of sin,

even my body joins in

on the chant that I

am a girl. That I am close

to being a good one. I tell myself to really commit. I worm my way

into the pleated uniform skirt

required of me. I am

the twenty-first century Virgin Mary

everyone’s been waiting for. I become so fluent in denial

I forget that my denial began

as a conscious choice.

When I notice worms,

I do not busy my hands with them, do not lift them with two fingers

to my eyes. I do not

so much as glance

at their ribbing, the place

where their mouths should be. I leave them on the tarmac

for the sun

to maim. My God,

all that shriveled skin.