As Girl

At six being a girl meant Tinkerbell
nail polish and pointed, pink Barbie shoes.
Sequined fairy wands and slippers that fell
off my feet when I ran. Outside the blue
sky a backdrop for green grass, the sweet
gum tree that was home base. Everything caught
my eye and sparkled. Rain-freshened earthworms,
armored rollie-pollies, and firefly dots.
At night the television played the news.
Its cyclopean eye returned my stare.
The goat-like pupil reflected a parade
of women and girls like ewes. Fair
and lovely. I thought they were adored.
Later, I was not a girl anymore.¹ 

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“‘As Girl’ is part of a sequence that imagines Ggugguyni (the Dena’ina [white] raven) as an archivist who curates events from pop culture, the natural world, and personal histories. The timelines in the poems redirect the speakers’ gazes and complicate their movement through time and space. For this poem, the frameworks of childhood and science imagine time as a linear entity, facing backwards or forwards. In contrast, science fiction permits a recursive movement that challenges the sense of inevitability inherent in linear time. I’m interested in examining how different chronotopes destabilize or reinforce colonial constructions of time and space.”
—Annie Wenstrup