Jessica Cuello

BEAUTY

I suspected beauty in myself, I broke the bathroom

sink trying to reach the mirror, longed for photos,

there were none. I was an observer of my own knees,

stroked my own thighs, my arms the same delicate

slope as the shell split open to reveal the whorl,

the tiny empty rooms shrinking into themselves.

I was beautiful to dogs, they bit me, they wanted

my flesh. One tore open my calf, a dog on a chain

broke free to nip me. They can smell your fear. So

stop fearing, the man said as his dog leapt on

his leash. The man choked him back. The beauty

in me could break a home by standing still or scare

a man by spitting milk into his lap. My colicky

cry could rupture love. I wandered through my mother’s

house to find a picture of my face, mine could crack

and split your mouth, break the frame, and it is so plain

to see, in the womb I was an egg that should have spread

its blood and thinned, ugliness thrust its way to me, a banal

fist and slap and now my form must be erased, and beauty

keeps attracting gropes, the Salvation Army clerk who thought

I was a thief and lifted up my shirt where the bare ribs

were and the skirt where she sought the necklace.

I had not stolen. I froze for any caress, any

glance. Rough like my origin. Yes, even if

it pinched, accused. My beauty was criminal,

it begged. It said, Break my skin to make it seen.

JESSICA CUELLO is the author of Yours, Creature (JackLeg Press, 2023); and Liar, selected by Dorianne Laux for The Barrow Street Book Prize, and honored with the 2022 CNY Book Award, a finalist nod for The Housatonic Book Award, and a longlist mention for The Julie Suk Award. She is a poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in Central New York.