Mg Roberts
from No T(h)ere
I want to think pink.
Some notes on unfolding:
1. A moan in a red room is womblike. What is expectant arrives, post-making: the unfolding of this body
from mine. For which and by which I am transparent. No bloody.2. A narrative slides, dendrite, branching outwards like an epicanthic fold.
2a. “Does this child look like your older one?”
A1. The fact that I am Asian seems to cause great distress, perhaps if I had not gained so
much weight during this pregnancy. Does this mark the end of white rice?3. A prolongation of a fold of the skin, covering both upper angles of the eye: a word often not
capitalized, usually offensive.A2. In this sense she is not like the other daughter, whose hand I am holding.
~ ~ ~
A3. When I was five, I ran with a neighbor-girl into a field of weeds, dandelion seeds
occurring as parachutes, breaking off in wind. We jump the chain link fence into a field
of wishes, a kink of wire yanks me back, exposing pink flesh with splashes of blood
falling perpendicular to the elbow: pink before blood, not white fold into bone.4. How can you interrupt an assessment? When does the empirical become fact? A lullaby: a boa
constrictor half-hidden between a fallen log and the jungle. The threshold of the wild beginning at the
crook of bare feet, a flash of sun through the denseness of palm fronds: a shimmering of scales seen
coiled. A hiss.
A4. Like the other hand I am holding, she bears no resemblance to herself.4a. A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale.
Barbie’s vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches
(hips). According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack
the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.A5. You look at your daughter long enough to see what the physician sees. You watch
as his assessment appears and disappears. This is magic.~ ~ ~
A6. Like cancer, the words unfold; when you breathe you feel sick. Damaged.
5. These facts culminate into a grunt. A whimper by something untrained, a mongrel, something you pet.
5a. Bhanu Kapil writes: Sex is always monstrous.
A7. She bends to become more compact. I push towards its burning, until the streetlamps turn the
sky pink: to this opening up.
