Does My Slashed Achilles Tendon Make Me More Feminine
For a whole summer
the county’s daughters
weren’t allowed to visit
the local mall after dark.
Members of a sex-trafficking ring
were supposedly slicing ankles as young girls−
late teens, twenties, early, mid, and late−
were stepping into their vehicles.
The perpetrator would wedge himself
beneath a potential victim’s vehicle,
striking the moment a sneakered or sandaled foot
entered his line of vision.
With the victim momentarily disabled,
the perpetrator would snatch her off the ground,
toss her into a nearby idling van−
white and without windows,
the never-to-be trusted vans of our childhood−
and give his accomplice the green light
to hightail it to the operation’s nearest headquarters.
Always, these tall tales bore holes
as raggedy-edged as our hearts.
Most made it out alive,
hobbling and hysterical as blood spurted from
an area of the body so taken for granted.
We knew none of the victims,
dead or alive.
Poolside,
bracing our eyes against the sun,
we dizzied ourselves with images of
body-less ankles leaping and bounding in midair,
healed ankles with scars identical to
the ghostly stretch marks
marking the insides of our thighs.
To sport ankle bracelets
felt a most grievous sin.
We concocted ways to protect our ankles
so that the mall could be visited after sundown:
borrowed soccer shin guards,
swinging our legs into our vehicles
as opposed to lifting them one by one.
We stocked up on pepper spray,
our jingling keychains now anchored
by flashes of burning pink.
We parked beneath parking lot lights
and near entrances.
We brought along brothers and boyfriends.
We eyed their meaty, flawless ankles with envy,
thought,
They’ll never bear a scar.
Christine Naprava is a writer from South Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Contrary Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, The Friday Poem, Thin Air Online, Drunk Monkeys, and Overheard Lit, among others. You can find her on Twitter @CNaprava and Instagram @cnaprava.