“The girl’s face was entirely hairy on the front, except for the
nostrils and her lips around the mouth. The hairs on her
forehead were longer and rougher in comparison with those
which covered her cheeks, although these are softer to touch
than the rest of her body, and she was hairy on the foremost
part of her back, and bristling with yellow hair up to the
beginning of her loins.”—Ulisse Aldrovandi, author of
Monstronum historia, catalogue of human and animal
abnormalities, Bologna, Italy, 1594
The woman in black unlaces my dress
lifts it over my head and I am bare.
Sun pours through the window and
the hairs on my body shine bright and golden as trinkets.
I am excited by my nakedness and also afraid.
Hush, says the woman. He will not harm you.
Dr. Aldrovandi’s hands are gentle
pale and dry as parchment.
He examines me like a map—
traces my skin with his fingers
from the north of my throat
to the south of my pubis.
I am a girl of ten.
A cabinet of curiosities, he calls me.
*
My sisters and I skip through columned halls in silk slippers and
gowns
past stern busts of Carrara marble frowning down.
We play with hoops and rubber balls that come
all the way from the New World.
But when the grown-ups are busy
with their tea and flattery—
nursemaid tending to the colicky baby,
laundress stiffening our fat white ruffs with starch and rack–
the other children of the court call us dog-faced girls.
One lifts the hem of my petticoat
whispers cruelties into my hair—
Do you hide a tail beneath your skirts?
*
I can tat lace, tie hitch knots beside the nursery fire,
read Latin as well as the prince.
Yet here in the woods behind the palace
I am a wild thing among wild things.
Hidden among the hawthorn and sweet cherry trees
my body resists naming.
I lie on my back, lift my dress and offer
limbs and belly to the wind.
Rooks clamor in the branches overhead.
Ants scuttle across my arms.
Crickets settle in my fur
as if I were a meadow.
