My First Orgasm at Main Street Baptist Church

It was the little Bible I had on my lap—the New

Testament. It was “white patent,” like my shoes.

It might be a clutch purse, I felt,

and I was being admirably still and quiet

with my white patent-leather clutch purse,

pretending I was a fashion model, praying

when the preacher said to or singing the hymn

Daddy led, holding my clutch purse even

after we sat back down, pretending I was a model

like Colleen Corby in Seventeen.

If I could sit as I sat last Sunday, my clutch

purse at that same angle, a buzz

of pleasure came. Colleen Corby was a “flower,”

my mother said, one time we went to Gulfport.

Sometimes the New Testament would buzz

and tingle, fizz some pleasure in my Sunday dress.

That’s what she was like, my mother in Gulfport,

alive to the sweetness of those pretty girls.

The gathers and ruffles in my skirt were ocean waves.

In our bathroom, I saw froth in my panties.