“Welcome to the stick world,”

Mama whispers to her newborn baby girl

She admires the little toes, wriggling

Like plump pink ballerinas

Caresses the round belly

Places her palm under the fat behind

Envelops the chunky thighs

She strokes the tiny flat breasts

The Baby girl sighs

And mama begins her stick world lesson

Hushed and intent:

“We stick baby boys’ lips on our nipples-

To relieve them

Stick big boys inside our lips-

To relieve them

Suck until we swallow their stickiness

We tell our sons ‘only sticks and stones

Will break their bones,’

Then call each other bitch, knowing it sticks

More than hurled knuckles ever could

We are ignored when our butts stick out

Admired when our chests stick out

We chant ‘stick together, stick together’, until

Size six bitch walks by-

‘sick’, we whisper, menacingly, to each other

‘Stick’, we think, admiringly, to ourselves

We smoke cancer sticks, chew on

Spearmint sticks, chomp on

Carrot sticks, celery sticks

We crave stick-out collarbones, ribs-

When we cave in, stomachs sticking out

We stick our fingers down our throats

Fingernails caked underneath with years of

Lipsticks, eyebrow sticks, sticks to cover up

Red spots, white spots, black spots

As we stick to the advice in magazines-

Page one: waif, page two: ‘be you’, they croon

Page three: ‘I like a good listener’

Writes Joe from Rochester

So we smile and nod, sticky sweet

And stick jewel after jewel in our ear, so we

Swish and sway pleasantly when we turn our heads

To hear what they have to say

We stick on eyelashes

Lower our eyes in their direction-

Suggestive eyes, bedroom eyes, ‘she wanted it’ eyes

So they stick it in, stick it out-

When we protest

We are stuck up, a stick in the mud

We stick our fingers when we sew up

Our children’s ripped jeans

Our husbands’ ripped egos

We pat stick-it notes on the fridge

Reminding our sons of baseball practice

Reminding our daughters to

Stick to their diets

We ooo and aahh over Suzy’s stick figure scene

The last in a series of self-portraits

And if we are the kind, honey

Who like to stick up into each other

We stick out-- warped Eves

And even with our combat boots we crumble like pick-up

Sticks sometimes, away from each other, and crooked.”

Mama wipes her eyes, mascara marring

Her Oil of Olay face

She lifts her daughter’s mouth to her nipple

Rubs the padded back

Peers into the clear eyes-

So satisfied, belly full

“‘I don’t want you sticking flowers

On my grave, baby girl,’”

Mama says

‘with the weight of the world

On your stick shoulders

Crying

And not ever knowing why.’”