by Sara Backer
When second-grade Brendan told her
he could see through her underpants
with his cardboard X-ray Spex, she said
she didn’t care. Her bones wouldn’t tell
how she really felt about pink-sweater Carol
and go-go boots Joan, who made her
unpopular in ten cafeteria seconds
by mocking her clumsiness with the tray.
She’d seen real X-rays, her private ulna
ghosts in a gray nebula, and the darkness
of the crack where all the pain spilled out.
She was no see-through girl.
Neither illusion nor technology could reveal
the scribbled secrets in her diary.
Published in Slink Chunk