For Your Twentieth Birthday, in Quarantine
with lines from Michael Ondaatje’s “For a Sad Daughter”
Want everything. If you break
break going out not in.
How you live your life I don’t care
But I’ll sell my arms for you.
Yesterday I learned I have been washing myself wrong
all my life. You don’t put soap in there, Mom. Don’t you know
what that does to the pH of your vagina? My ancient puss
blushed at the attention. All the things you know about
eyebrows, oat milk, white privilege, and I can barely
brush my teeth or read an expiration date. I take
the blame for those pillowcases that made your hair frizz.
Mine was a butch mom; my trousseau, martini olives
and a pile of golf hats. I can still teach you all my best mistakes.
Want everything. If you break
the butter dish or the dachshund statue, get out the crazy
glue, start writing. Potential embarrassment is no reason
to leave a door unopened. Don’t be shy, don’t be afraid
to raise your hand. Give the answer, place your order,
tell the waitress, tell the teacher, tell that icky man
to go away. Do you need me to say this? You always win
at cards, beat me at Scrabble. You know, and you know
you know, and what you don’t know, who knows. They say
it can’t hurt you. But the line between brave and stupid is thin.
Break going out not in.
No college kid in America wanted to come home
when quarantine started, and some didn’t.
You did, miserably, weeping for your sophomore year,
but since then you’ve showed everyone how it’s done.
Nine-minute miles, Wheel and Dancer, granola and yogurt,
protests, TikToks, All Cops Are Bastards. Your hair
stops strangers in the street, exclaiming as if they spied
an adorable pet. I was sad, at first, about the hand-
inked tattoo, but here is something we share:
How you live your life I don’t care
What I mean is, I trust you.
I have been making portraits of your self-portraits;
when someone asked if you don’t mind, you had to
laugh. Since the late nineteen-eighties I’ve only
made pictures of children. You popped in twenty
years ago to give your brothers a break. It’s true,
for me, parenting has been one big scam.
Before we open your presents, I’d like to ask Michael
Ondaatje if this is really such a great thing to do.
But I’ll sell my arms for you.
photo by Greg Dohler
University of Baltimore professor MARION WINIK is the author of The Big Book of the Dead and winner of the 2019 Towson Prize for Literature. Among her nine other books are First Comes Love and Highs in the Low Fifties. Her award-winning Bohemian Rhapsody column appears monthly at Baltimore Fishbowl, and her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere. A board member of the National Book Critics Circle, she writes book reviews for People, Newsday, The Washington Post, and Kirkus Reviews; she hosts The Weekly Reader podcast at WYPR. She was a commentator on NPR for fifteen years; her honors include an NEA Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction. More info at marionwinik.com.