Poetry by Fara Tucker

            Scottb211 CC



​
​Code Red

I.

In junior high, the girls
are sent to a special assembly
to learn about menstruation.

The auditorium fills
with smothered giggles,
knowing glances, and questions

we’re too scared to ask. Talk
of feminine hygiene suggests
we are both feminine and unclean,

and we don’t yet know to question either.
We leave with goodie bags
that get hastily shoved into backpacks.

The boys weren't invited
to our secret meeting, but one of them
manages to get their grubby hands

on someone's stash. Soon,
cafeteria walls are decorated
with sticky-backed pads by boys

who've learned to mock
what they don't understand
and cannot tame. We all know

the sight of this is meant to be
disgusting and hilarious.
Pre-pubescent-boys-turned-hack-comedians

tell jokes as old as time, passed down
from men who think they're clever
when they say she must be on the rag again.

Tender hands dart up to stifle squeals
and cover scarlett cheeks, but inside
wild, fertile bodies are learning

that we are the butt of the joke.
In the backs of classrooms,
we press pads into palms

like fortune-teller-folded notes;
trying not to get caught, but also convinced
we’ve already been convicted of our crime.

The evidence is pooling up, filling cotton,
leaking onto young thighs that tremble
at the thought of what might spill out

if they lift us out of our chairs. Pulse quickens,
convinced that merely asking for the bathroom pass
will magically embroider a scarlet P on our rib cages.

Tucking cotton contraband into sweatshirt sleeves,
the walk to the front of the classroom
is suddenly a mile long.

II.

At home, my bathroom is a crime scene.
Hunched over the sink, I rinse stained panties,
desperately trying to remove any evidence
that I exist. It won't be the last time
my body refuses to behave.

III.

Today, Aunt Flo is much closer
to her farewell performance

than her debut. The scarlet P
is faded now; but like that stain

on my underwear--even after years
of wash cycles, a tiny bit remains.

But most days, it's upstaged
by a red badge of courage.

Most days, I am howling at the moon.


​

Fara Tucker is a writer, poet, storyteller, teacher, photographer, former therapist and current therapy client. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, she's called Portland, Oregon home since 2000.

Her poetry can be found in Train River Publishing's Spring 2020 Anthology; the Summer 2020 issue of Subjectiv. - a journal of visual and literary art from the Pactific NW; the QuillKeepers Press anthology: Soon, A New Day; and Raw Earth Ink's anthology: Creation and Cosmos. Her first piece, "The Baby Chicken," can be found in a drawer in her grandparents house.

She particularly loves exploring the beauty, heartbreak, and paradoxical nature of life and all its liminal spaces.

---