Research: Journals

The Journal

Past Issues

28.1

Lisa Lewis

Storybox

That year is the locked box. The smart box,
Sheer sides polished with rock salt.
Dreary dark box lit red in one corner,
Air thick with fixer, wet photos dripping dry,
Ghost box, soul box, somebody stole your soul
Box, snapped your photo when you looked
Lost. Map box, get on the road box,
Step on the gas box, all routes lead nowhere
Box, motel box, bedspread box,
Man who clasped you in his arms box,
He might've been a boxer, with round biceps
And shiny shorts, shark box, you wandered
The beach box, snorted coke from an ivory box,
Rolled a c-note, coughed into the box, where
Was the sneeze box, tissue box, tits and ass box,
They used to call pussy "box," don't call it that box,
Don't touch it box, don't get anywhere near me box:
This, the old news sealed in the carved box.

I was seventeen. If the world were a box
And the directions to sail seas simple,
Handwritten on rectangular paper, a document
Of import just for me, you could wrest it
From my hands and pry inside, and good luck
Facing me in my halter top worn not in beauty
But grim duty, that year I tried to go blank
Like a slat in a pine box, stash box,
The Reader's Digest condensed book
I hollowed with a razor to hide my secret
Possessions: it stayed empty. That year
I meant to swap my child's love for horses
For a woman's passion for men. Once I lay
On the ground, naked, gazing across the angles
Of my body, concave belly between hipbones
And below, grimacing, a man's face. Beside me,
My friend Robin, a mature fourteen, getting fucked.
I stared up with the man's face buried,
No pleasure in the sharpness of his tongue's touch,
And no one saw me though I saw all in shame.
Robin's breasts bloomed bigger, her face prettier.
The more handsome man, notable for ponytail
And hairy wrists, fucked her. All the players
Know their place in this race and to come in last,
Never to come at all, is why I ran fast, pleading
To strip and endure the stippling mouth
And pretend. I kept old letters in a box,
Men had written of my body, who were they
Writing to? My mother read their tuneless
Chants, I knew when she called me
A prostitute. So had she been, she recalled
The signs, we prospered poorly. Who's safe
Indoors when the doors are hung on hinges?
Who despises her past when it's locked
In its warped-lid asbestos box? The back
Of my hand slapped like a square paddle.
The fingers jutted like wires. The mirror
Inside sold my face back to me, desperate
To give and receive. Car up on blocks.
Listen to the talk, soft gossip that mocks.
I knew how to sit a horse, speak the commands
Walk and trot, and I could ride a course of jumps,
The horse's iron toes knocking poles
In parabola so they rocked in the rusted cups.
My mother had sold her body to buy them
So I followed like a colt--that's the story
I made up. Take the papers from the box.
Stay awake to read them. Try not to feel
Too shocked or bored at the female drama.

There's a silver latch on the box top. Breathe
On it, dampen it, wipe away your fingerprints
So I don't know who's trailed me like a colt,
A goat, spun like a top, a gyroscope,
Or sharpened a speculum to see up my twat.
Don't be shocked, take back the reflection,
Just forget, I didn't say it, if I did I didn't mean it.
I was pure pretense, rolling on grassy earth,
Spread apart like a girl with a job to do.
I didn't have the looks but Robin did
And I had to prove I had something.
I don't know what happened to her.
There are only so many stories in this box.
If you fish it's a tackle box. If you cook
The fish it's an icebox. If you store forks
And spoons you line it with felt.
If you dance at a ball you line it with finer felt,
And the diamonds shine, silver glistens
Untarnished. If you leave the country,
Believing you are dying, you burn the box.
You open the stove to stow it in flame
And the story of a hand slapping your good-looking
Ass on the way to the shadowy spot gets lost.
If you go to war you need an ammunition box.
If you start a business you need a file box.
If you work as a plumber you need a toolbox.
If you want to pretend none of this happened
You break the box, memorize its contents, pour
Gasoline, strike a match and stand back, rush back,
To the year you were seventeen, or I was,
And change came upon you like demons freed
From Pandora's box so for years
You trapped them, in nets and boxes, wings
Like the wings of bats, eyes like the eyes
Of fathers and mothers, hands like the hands
Of men who have no hands, mouths nipping
Between your legs like fish you can't catch,
Flying fish, fish swimming upstream,
Prostitutes men describe as stinking up
Their cars with the reek of cock and twat.
They want clean boxes, edges set straight, craft
For their pleasure, buying and throwing back,
Fish everybody says they'd never eat:
That girl is lost. Her body is lying like paper
In the grass, a box beside her, she's reaching for it,
She should've burned it. She never wanted you
To know, but as with all forms of knowledge
And all beginnings, stopping strictly
Demands never starting, never the first idea.