My First Orgasm at Main Street Baptist Church
It was the little Bible I had on my lap—the New
Testament. It was “white patent,” like my shoes.
It might be a clutch purse, I felt,
and I was being admirably still and quiet
with my white patent-leather clutch purse,
pretending I was a fashion model, praying
when the preacher said to or singing the hymn
Daddy led, holding my clutch purse even
after we sat back down, pretending I was a model
like Colleen Corby in Seventeen.
If I could sit as I sat last Sunday, my clutch
purse at that same angle, a buzz
of pleasure came. Colleen Corby was a “flower,”
my mother said, one time we went to Gulfport.
Sometimes the New Testament would buzz
and tingle, fizz some pleasure in my Sunday dress.
That’s what she was like, my mother in Gulfport,
alive to the sweetness of those pretty girls.
The gathers and ruffles in my skirt were ocean waves.
In our bathroom, I saw froth in my panties.
