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  • ruby, n. and adj., and: Letters, Part 4, and: Letters, Part 5
  • Lisa Low (bio)

ruby, n. and adj

1. A valuable precious stone varying from deep crimson or purple to pale rose. Lindsay with the Tiffany bracelet gave Ruby a pair of green-crusted earrings in a boomerang-shaped note. Rubies, Lindsay said in the class closet, coat sleeves in their eyes like icicles. Each night before bed, Ruby twists the studs, prays away the ache in her holes she swabs every half-hour on the dot. 2. The color of a ruby, a glowing purplish-red. A just-kissed mouth. A thumb-sized back zit. Her nose bleeding during gym class. The nurse says to pinch her nose like a clothespin. Ruby wants to fall asleep and not go anywhere in her blood-spotted shoes. She considers throwing them away, coloring both shoes with Sharpie, sleeping until school's out. This wouldn't have happened to Lindsay. 3. A deep-red port wine. Ruby drinks grape juice at church from a plastic cup. If she blurs her eyes the cup becomes a shot glass, the kind someone will give her at a college party. She'll tilt it to her mouth, throw her head back like a girl whose laugh makes everyone love her. 4. A person, esp. a woman, of great worth or beauty. Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Biel, J. Lo. Britney, Christina, Mandy, Gwen. Sarah Jessica, Sarah Michelle. Claudia, Jenny, Pamela, Cindy, Tiffani.

After A. Van Jordan, after Ching-In Chen [End Page 60]

Letters, Part 4

Dear Ruby,

Once, I was a girl who looked like you. I vanished between library stacks, in a circle of girls, with a loudspeaker above me, test tube in my hand. No one noticed the broken glass on the floor, the way I bent toward the ground as if bowing. Now I hide behind a tall white man, your mother tells you. She means, I don't love myself, I've disowned my people. She means, I'll follow him into whiteness and never look back. Let her say the dark—let her say what she wants about my body. Let my body turn to glass, shrunken figurine beside your bed.

Lisa

________

Dear Lisa,

If what you say is true, the rain inside my body isn't rain. The butterfly above my desk isn't mine the way I thought it was. If I believe you, will you make a world of dark-haired girls who won't be called each other's names? What will you do with all the other girls collecting dust in their eyelids like dolls? When will Michelle Kwan win gold? Are those your eyes staring down from my butterfly's wings?

Ruby [End Page 61]

Letters, Part 5

After Ching-In Chen

Dear Ruby,

I wish I could take back the questions I made you hold all at once, your knuckles turned white enough to see through, your child-eyes dark as tree holes. I'll show you the evergreen—branches that hid me days at a time. If I could, I'd tell every tree to hide you if you wanted, lift you into the sky. What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry I didn't sew your dolls back together, I'm sorry I can't make the static disappear.

Love,

Lisa

________

Dear Ruby,

When I was young, I wanted to look inside a snow globe and find someone like me, dark hair beaded with snow, pulling feathers from her down jacket to make a pillow. I wanted a bird that would carry me on her back—my name in her throat, a song that would steal into other girls' windows. Yes, I could make a world where birds carry girls wherever they want, but I didn't make you to fly away when the world hurts you. I don't want you to wish yourself into the future, like I did at your age, ready at any moment to leave my body behind.

Love,

Lisa [End Page 62]

Lisa Low

Lisa Low was born and raised in Maryland. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in...

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