print previewback JESSICA TANCK
Courtesy and Horror
after Sharon Olds
To be clean was to be good, and vice versa.
Every baseboard, tile, and mirror spotless,
the deserts of white carpet and linoleum
a proof we weekly scrubbed blank.
Me and my sister laughing through fogs
of ammonia as we scrubbed the kitchen floor,
bandanas hugging our faces like hospital
gowns. Cleanliness meant innocent meant
nothing to hide. Delicate and supplicant
to a higher order, white-touched and still
as the doe when the arrow enters.
When a co-worker scrawled #1 BITCH ♡
on my forearm in Sharpie, I lingered
in the dark back room after our shift
and took steel wool to the skin until
both it and ink were stripped. A good thing,
a clean thing—did the difference matter?
The filthy ate the clean. 
Courtesy and Horror
Damned If