Emily Jalloul

Raising Daughters

-for mothers, for my mother

Thank god for orgasms
is what I think every time
I make myself come,
like Cleopatra and her gourd
filled with raging bees
which likely did not exist,
but I imagine did—
her ripe green calabash cored out
by some worker who poured
the frenzied insects inside.
I like to think as I lie in bed,
panties pulled to my knees,
that this is meaningful.
I like to imagine the ghosts
of past women
surrounding me—
yes, even then—
supporting me, pleased
with how far we’ve come
from trapping bees in fruits.
Thank god for this vibrator,
and for Spencer’s where
I found many others years before,
including my very first—
a slim banana-yellow 9-speed vibrator—
purchased in fact by my mother.
And thank god for her, too,
who I now understand
was giving me a great gift,
a knowledge about myself.
There’s no way to express gratitude
for something so immense.
Did she wonder if I’d used it,
if I’d figured out what so many
women discover about their bodies
alone in dark rooms or caves,
using fruits or toothbrushes or whatever
tools we find?
It took me eighteen years
from the time I started trying.
And now, I turn to stow my newest device, thinking:
this is why I’ll never have a daughter.
The immense pressure
to raise a girl into a woman
who knows how to give herself
what she deserves.
Do you know what it means
for a woman to love herself?
To turn toward gentleness inward,
a tender animal in her hand.

Emily Jalloul is a Lebanese-American poet from South Florida. She earned her PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where she currently lives. Her previous work has been published or is forthcoming in What Things Cost: an anthology for the people, Arkansas International, and Bodega Magazine, as well as others.