Garter
Molly Sutton Kiefer
When my daughter turns one, I will buy her fishnets, tramp shoes, a slim black quellazaire. I will turn her hair to curls and fill up her shoulders, give her only snakes. She'll carry a shell colored revolver and spin as a wheel does, roulette on unsteady feet, bowlegged cowgirl. Her winter will be surrounded with the creak of bar stools, the temptation of rattlesnake-skinned boys, summer sand washed away by flask's stale whisky. He'll handlebar, she'll twirl a comb becomingly, a weight at the end of the tunnel. Her Halloween hasn't been filled with caustic gazes. Her body isn't made for this flirtation, this made belief. She'll Medusa, trade frilly garter for a crown of snakes.