Sometimes I Feel I am A Shell Living Inside Another Woman's Skin
By: Maria S Picone
she, like a big Labrador, suburban have-to-have, grew up there, white name
stitched on her leash and collar, papers in a manila folder
after they background-checked her new mom and dad. fixed
her. forever home she couldn’t choose
stamped on her dog tags, intimate stranger to universal-American
white
life.
Maria Picone, oppressively Italian—
insists that they say, Pih co ni and not Pick cone.
father had a store: Pic One. Buzzy WASPs
replace this “ne” with a NEIGH
like a horse saying, NAY—discomfort loud among them,
bronzed plastic women awash with white
insights, Barbies wined out in the writing workshop
waiting for her to represent her tribe of purported Labradors
and -doodles
talked over
and over
but friends, Maria S. Picone doesn’t fit in the utensil drawer
with those silverware gals who spent the pandemic baking;
the Pottery Barn catalogue carries no chopsticks.
Maria S. Picone doesn’t need your surprised eyebrows punctuating
the more perfect union of her name and her person—
can’t be helped by obedience school; she would sooner hurl
a dragon firecracker at your head than invite you
over for an inspiring virtual conversation on enjambment,
erasure. a hands-on experience with Asian
silence.
[moment of respect]
talk over
and over this idea
that I stole an imaginary woman’s name
to rubber stamp a blanched veneer
on my gold skinned body. that she
not I am the shell reclaimed from
exotic shores, bleaching out
inconvenient remnants of color. we are forever
stealing each other’s bones.
sending each other to the doghouse. she,
like a real American, might buy
a lucky cat while she splits
herself into tree pose
because
she might realize that the origin story of Maria S.
Picone is not hers to choose, assume, scribble out,
white
out