String of Pearls

my mother said you know a pearl is real
by tapping it against your teeth.
she said I’m sorry, she said you know
        there’s this darkness inside me.

I realized I don’t have childhood photos–
the surgical assistant sends a memo post-election
something about scrubbing your assigned sex
from the records, paper trail so neat it absolves
        I wonder where my girlhood goes.

somewhere in my parents’ basement
film slides of my fifth birthday party
I don’t remember the box mix Barney sheet cake
but I remember the purple foil, the dark-eyed
freckled girl, lank mullet, half-smile
        do I imagine a darkness there?

a photograph of my mother at eleven
the first evidence of her childhood I’ve seen
I was such a weird kid she said & I thought it was shame
grainy, discolored with age–she’s reaching for the camera
mouth open smiling. I look for myself in her face
but it is only her face, her girlhood
        I’ve started to carry it with me.

she gave me a pearl necklace for my sweet sixteen
every young woman needs a string of pearls. some
idiosyncratic coming of age it takes a decade to love
too late–pearls catching on my adam’s apple
        the ends reach but never quite meet.

in her latest email mom asks when we’re visiting
says she’s always been proud of me, such
incredible acts of life and living. I swell, I swallow
        & I put it to my teeth.

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Charlie Divine Steele (they/he) is a queer, trans writer who grew up in the shrub steppe of rural Oregon. Their work is influenced by the intersection of history, art, and culture. You can find his writing in Vagabond City, Alchemy, and The Bellwether Review.