Eastward

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As you open the apartment building’s cracked glass door for the first time in sixteen
days, unbutton the top button of your shirt.  That’s better.  You looked like a religious girl with your shirt closed up to your neck that way.  One more button now.  Show the people of Manhattan you worship nothing, that you love yourself too much to hide.  Walk east.

Unbutton the third button, the fourth, as you look left, then right.  Cross the street and enter Union Square, squirming with human movement this time of day.  Buildings loom over the park on all sides.  Circling above, a helicopter churns out a perpetual stutter that won’t become a word.  A DJ plays electronic songs loud enough for the whole park to hear.  He thunders into a microphone: “Do you want to daaaance, New York Citaaaay?”  This habitat seems foreign.  Good.  You’re on your way, Celia.  Unbutton the fifth button.

Peter bought you this shirt on your honeymoon in Greece.  Remember.  Nine years ago, the buildings of Santorini glowed white and domed behind you while he stroked your bare belly with his hand lovingly, then pinched-hard and fast, using his fingernails.  No, no, no, he shook his bald head at your stomach, then pulled you to a sleek, badly-lit store, where he bought you this long sleeved wool shirt two sizes too large.  You’d wanted yellow; he chose beige.  When he buttoned it onto you under the pounding sun, he’d said, “That’s better,” smiled without teeth so his lips disappeared, placed his broad hand tenderly on your narrow shoulder, and guided you back to the beach.  The bruise went gray in only hours, like a bit of storm adhered to skin.

When a broad, well-suited man yelling into a cell phone looks down at your chest, rejoice.  They’re glances like these you’ve missed out on, locked up in Peter’s vast suburban Tudor house like your body held blueprints for a new weapon of mass destruction, like all the world outside that house was an enemy nation ready to steal you away.

Now steal yourself back.  Pull your hair back and tie it up.  Show your neck.  Show your face.  A sweet breeze rushes against the back of your neck, arousing an unreachable memory.  Don’t try too hard to remember-it’ll come when you let go trying.  As you unbutton the sixth and then the final button of this coarse beige shirt, as you pull your arms through one sleeve then the next, notice a happy collie waddling off leash, looking back at her owner again and again to be sure he’s still there.  Dangle the shirt casually off your bent elbow for a few seconds, then bring it to your nose.  It smells of sour wool that sat wet too long.  Now let the thing drop.  Feel the cloth’s scratch as it falls away.  Mourn the garment tinily, then savor the release of its weight.

Now isn’t that refreshing, this air against your bare stomach, your open back?  Like the cool breath of someone who’d never hurt you.  You’ve worked so hard and gone so hungry for the ridges lining your stomach, for the muscles that wrap your back.  Notice people on benches look up mid-conversation, mid-lunch, mid-text message to admire your tone.  Let the approaching woman who sags under the weight of shopping bags see that you’re your very own sculpture.  This pink-faced middle-aged man’s mouth hangs open like he’s got something to say, and his chubby teenage daughter stares like you are divine.  Don’t cower now.  Look each in the eye to remind them you’re real, and watch each look away.

This plum lace bra with a tiny black bow at the center shows the people of Union Square the elegant taste you’ve concealed for so long.  Peter didn’t allow you to work.  And so, you spent your days folding laundry, toweling away dust, windexing the Tudor’s windows, and tending, watering, speaking to your indoor plants.  You lived to ensure your cage glistened, felt soft, smelled fresh.  And so, like everything you’ve acquired in the past nine years, he bought you this bra.  Unlike much else, here you made a choice-permitted one piece of lingerie from a selection of six for your thirty-second birthday, you picked this.

Exit the park and walk steadily away until the blips and bleeps of digital music fade into a chattering tangle of voices.  Notice a squirrel tilt into the cupped palm of a petite woman seated on a bench. It dips its little head in to gather food, then scurries away.  A bearded man leaning outside a rare book shop, hardcover open in his palm, stares at your little bow as if it holds the answer he’s been seeking his whole life.

If that’s the case, he can have it.  Reach back with both arms.  Unlatch the bra, then let it fall forward.  The straps brush your elbows as your breasts spill out into the day.  Pull the fabric away from your skin and pinch the left strap between thumb and forefinger.  Holding it this way, like this conjoined set of lace bowls disgusts you, realize maybe it does.  Drop it on the ground.  Look back at the man and watch his eyes widen as he watches your bare back.  Wonder what good that rare book does him if he’s just staring at you after all.

The breeze was uplifting before, but this is something else.  Your nipples rise, alert.  They prickle with pleasure.  See what happens when you don’t hide from the world?  It caresses you.  It makes a fine lover.

Walk to the other side of 4^th Avenue now.  When you’re halfway across, notice a man with narrow shoulders and a square-shaped face look down like you are prey.  Calm down.  Look ahead.  When he says, “Nice,” elongating the i and snaking the s, so close his lips touch your ear as he passes, stop breathing.  Feel like a porcelain doll ripped limb from limb for display in his bedroom.  Feel at home in this, then allow something fierce to rise.  Turn around, burn a threat into his eyes with yours, mouth the words, ‘Fuck you,’ then keep walking-faster now.  Feel like you just discovered electricity.  Feel your organs avalanche with fear.  No, no, no, Celia-don’t cross your arms over your breasts.  Let them fall to your side.  That’s better.  Remember this is a city full of fools.  See them perspiring in all those clothes?  From here on in, ignore their eyes and words.  While they scurry back and forth, you’re on your way to a place they can’t even remember.

Make a right on 4^th Avenue until you reach 11^th Street so the slithering man can’t find you if he turns back with rage.  Now reward yourself for your courage.  When you pass a deli with big wooden crates full of bright fruits, stop to look at watermelons, green and swollen, at porous oranges, at freckled bananas in bunches, at shining apples.  As you palm the largest apple, notice that it feels like it’s been polished by knowing hands.  Pluck it from the crate.  Bite into the apple and hear it snap and crunch-a private chorus just for you.  Enjoy its sweet tartness, its cool sap.   Release the apple core inside a bed of city dirt, next to a poor twig of a tree.  Maybe something will grow from these seeds.

Look down at the sidewalk.  See your feet strapped in the leather sandals you bought with money from your first and only job, where you sat in a mauve cube in a windowless office typing data into grids on a screen for Mr. Whipley, three floors up, who had a large wall of windows and who, when no one was around, squeezed your shoulders, massaged a little, and said, “Good.  You’re on your way.”  These sandals housed your feet in the warm confused seasons of your twenties, came with you from New York City to the Tudor house, and protected your steps three weeks ago when you left the house as Peter slept, walked forty-two minutes to the nearest bus stop, and took the three hour trip back to your beloved city.  Why force this distance between yourself and the earth?  Slip off the sandals.  Walk a few paces; feel that heat underfoot!  Even concrete absorbs the sun.  You’ve missed that warmth for so long.  As you walk toward 2^nd Avenue, notice the florist shops with poor wild plants crammed behind walls.  Then look up-not directly at the sun, but at the sky the color of hydrangea, at clouds like wisps of wild cotton.  A flock of pigeons swoops up, their wings flapping with the sound of far away applause.

Hold your skirt in both hands and move it back and forth the way a child imitating a princess might.  This skirt was once your mother’s-something she’d saved from her own young years just in case she had a daughter.  And here you are, her daughter, and she gave it to you wrapped in tissue paper after your high school graduation.  When you first emerged from your bedroom wearing it, her blue eyes popped turquoise the way they always have when she cries.  “Look at you,” she said, beaming.  “I can’t look at me!” you’d said, “Only you can.”  And she laughed for an excuse to let the tears of joy roll.  It’s been six years since you’ve seen her, though you’ve called her since from close-to-home payphones when Peter still worked in the office.  As you pull the skirt off, linen skims your thighs.  Step over where it’s fallen on the ground and move forward, widening your stride.  Don’t look back.  It fades, it all fades, and, Celia, your mother is more than this skirt.  Your legs aren’t trapped beside each other anymore; each has its own course, its own strength.

Now, between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A, a distant drum circle pulses.  Listen.  Let your walk become a sway.  See clothed bodies scramble aside as you pass, as if you are a royal toddler lost and naked, Athena descended from Mt. Olympus, the first danger on earth.  Look down at all that skin covering you-so even-toned, free of bruises and cuts.

Now, the park.  Get to where trees shield your view of buildings, then step a few paces away from their shade.  Stand still in this patch of light.  See the elm only feet away.  Close your eyes and touch your shoulders with the fingers of both hands.  You radiate warmth.  Marvel at the sun’s power to reach you from so far away.

Open your eyes.   See a police officer in thick navy clothes waddling toward you, her eyes wide.  You’re just seven steps away from the tree.  Quickly.  She’ll be on you in seconds if you don’t rise up now.  Grab onto a branch.  Pull yourself up.  Use your legs-you’ve built your muscles like indestructible cities, and this wasn’t just for Peter to look at.  Use what you’ve made.  Feel the tree rough against your rough feet.  Reach up, spreading your body vertically, then grab higher.  Keep climbing.  Now, near the top, nestle into a spot on a thick branch.  Ants swarm around your thigh.  They know nothing of you-only that you’re a block in their path.

Here you’re safe, shrouded in green leaves gone gold under the sun.  Ignore the harsh barking language below.  It has nothing to do with you-you who are open in a closed world.  Thrust your head out above the leaves.  This all feels familiar: air sweeping your body, bark against your bare back, leaves tickling your thighs.  Remember.  Beyond Peter, beyond childhood and your mother and words and exile, beyond species and eyes.  Back, back, back: you grew into the earth and extended toward the light, stretching out new limbs, naked and indestructible against all seasons.  Fields unfolded and mountains emerged in front of you: you did not see them and did not long to.  Remember now-that hollow carved into you millions of years ago, which you’ve spent lifetimes filling with shelter, company, coverings.  There was a time when you needed nothing but dirt, water, sun.  With those you made seeds.  Now grow.