PATIENCE IN THE BRAMBLE

I don't remember squeezing the trigger,
though I never forgot the smell of smoke.
The wild dog's eyes ruined between rage
and confusion. How I waited too long to shoot,
and the beast an eyelash short of my throat
when the bullet pierced its chest.
I don't remember Adam handing me the misericord
but the blade never forgets completion. 
Blood darkening a halo about the animal's head. 
There were many beasts slain beneath me.
Then other girls. I never started the fight, 
but I always ended it. Sometimes the fighting 
ended me: On my back. On my knees. Loose braids
from another girl as trophy. Again, momma hollering 
I've torn another good frock. That I refuse to behave 
like a proper girl. More rough than gorgeous, 
my girlhood, fox-shaped. Knows how to hunt
and how to be hunted. Instead of 'I love you', Adam
teaches me to curl my hands tight, how to best stand
for balance. All these years, I thought he was trying to bond, 
I understand now it was to armor me against this life
for when he would one day lay beneath it.
Obedience only afforded me an enemy's failure. The boys
thought they cornered me, but what I lacked in height, 
I made up in precision, so I pulled the tallest one 
down by the collar and kneed him in the jaw. 
I wanted the boy to learn what life had yet to teach, 
that's what I told his mother when she called me an animal.
An animal on her haunches who must now outrun 
the riot of boys. Imagining the years of running laid bare,
I can shed my velvet. but not my girlhood.
One mothered by scraps, fathered by a fist.