Rigour on National Coming Out Day, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1996

I’ve been pacing
The circumference
Of my classroom
For weeks
Rambling
About story,
About the fictive
Line
Between
Truth
And dare
And rubbing
My hands
Together
With broken
Sticks of chalk,
Preparing them
To grip
Some thought
Like a high bar.
Caked white,
My hands
Alone
Can’t unveil
Their desires
For certain
Motions,
So I smack
My hands
Against
The board
Leaving
My prints
That include
Traces
Of other
Women’s
Bodies.
They replace
The words
They could write
Like the chalk
Outline
Of the corpse
Replaces the body,
And I remember
My back
Pressed
Against
The blacktop
After school
And her insisting
Lie still.
Don’t move,
As she ran
The new stick
Of stolen chalk
Around
My edges,
Her fingers
Blushing
Against me
As I became
One long,
Curving
Line.
After,
She extended
Her hands
And pulled me
From the second
Dimension.
Can I draw
Some clothes?
I asked
Peering over
Myself.
No, she said,
You’ll make
A mistake,
And I don’t want
To trace you again.
But the fact is
She did. Today
After class
I avoid the hate
Chalked
Under each step
I take on
The campus sidewalk.
Next to those words,
The chalk
Outlines of bodies
The world
Wants to negate.

Sandra Yannone, with gratitude to the editors of
The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets,
The Backwaters Press, Omaha, NE (2013)