Brenda Miller, “Table of Figures,” from Blessing of the Animals
Oh, Brenda Miller, won’t you please be my friend? I know this kind of adolescence.
“
Note the jutting hip bones. The high cheekbones. Collarbone swooping to her shoulders. Eyes, almost too large for her face. These, she hopes, are the beginnings of beauty, though boys sometimes still bark at her (actually bark!) when she enters a classroom. What a dog, they snicker behind their hands. She keeps her head up, her chin jutted out, her gaze insistently forward, though tears smart in the corners of her eyes. Acne blares on her cheeks and her chin, furious red cysts, a smattering of whiteheads across her nose. Her hair, only an hour into the day, already an oily smear across her forehead. Braces, glasses: the whole catastrophe. A dog. She had a dog named Sheba, a Great Dane, her coat sleek and brindled, the most beautiful creature on the planet. The boys whimper and yowl until the teacher, exasperated, finally tells them to shut up. The teacher says nothing to her, keeps his gaze turned away. No one, not even the girls who eat lunch with her on the playground, will meet her eye.
”
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