Vicki Ioro

Guilty

Vicki Ioro

The doctor says my daughter’s curved spine is pressing on her heart the way she pressed on mine when she was inside me. 10 years-old, sitting on the crinkly examination table she looks at me like this is my fault. I always blame everything on her father’s family. The spear side — his sickly father, his crazy mother. We don’t have scoliosis in our family, my mother says when I tell her the diagnosis. Until her bones fuse my daughter wears a brace all through high school that cages her like Scout in her Halloween ham costume. My daughter’s doctor carries a Chanel bag I promise my daughter I will buy her one when her years of treatment are done, as if I can afford this luxury. Bones fused, college bound with her Chanel bag, I make a planter of the cage to memorialize the curve. At Kleinfeld’s while my daughter is being fitted for her wedding gown Olga, the scary Russian seamstress, her mouth full of pins, tells me my daughter is crooked. My daughter, fairy tale princess in crystals and peau de soie breaks my heart.

Vicki Iorio is the author of the poetry collections Poems from the Dirty Couch (Local Gems Press), Not Sorry (Alien Buddha Press) and the chapbooks Send Me a Letter (dancinggirlpress) and Something Fishy (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals including The Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, poets respond on line, The Fem Lit Magazine, and The American Journal of Poetry. Vicki is currently living in Florida but her heart is in New York.