Despy Boutris
Baptism
My mouth is full
of riverwater.
And my name always comes out
like an apology.
Years ago,
before my brother’s baptism,
I pulled back
my hair and pretended
to be a boy—
chest flat, hips narrow
with girlhood. Then
my mother rouged my lips
and brushed out my hair,
let it curl around my neck
like a noose.
Now I christen myself
in the river. I duck underwater
and become water,
not woman. I become
bodiless
and fail to drown.
Baptism
My mouth is full
of riverwater.
And my name always comes out
like an apology.
Years ago,
before my brother’s baptism,
I pulled back
my hair and pretended
to be a boy—
chest flat, hips narrow
with girlhood. Then
my mother rouged my lips
and brushed out my hair,
let it curl around my neck
like a noose.
Now I christen myself
in the river. I duck underwater
and become water,
not woman. I become
bodiless
and fail to drown.
Despy Boutris‘s writing has been published or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, American Literary Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, The Journal, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston, works as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.