Judy Bankman: Afraid of Language

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

Brighton Beach

In the sand, I am a dime

glinting silver glory

drawing ratcheting gazes

of men afraid of language

afraid the plum of me will spoil 

with their words, or mine.

But they don’t know the weapon

of my tongue, how it lashes

when provoked, the dog fight 

in my gut, that I, too, live within

this animal kingdom 

of carnage.

I’ve grown accustomed to many things

besides the male gaze:

adult acne, the keen of subway rails,

summer air damp & thick as pork fat.

Daylight, make me a forager

a bottom feeder 

with patient lungs 

I will gorge myself on the ocean floor

& rise up, 

grinning

a mouth full of shells

ready to shatter into words.

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Judy Bankman is an Oregon-based writer. Her poetry has appeared in Souvenir Lit, Linden Avenue, Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, and Indolent Books' HIV Here and Now Project. She was a finalist in the 2020 Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival Poetry Contest.