After former Wisconsin State Representative Roger Rivard

The thesis was Manifest Destiny. The thesis was
some girls rape easy. The argument was
———–clear hearts, open legs. Nights in the pool,
chorine clung to our hair like kudzu.
Underwater lights made us rape easy.
———–Tertiary. We were plugging the leaks,
we were on our backs dreaming of ocean
acidification and toxic shock syndrome.
———–The fact that clownfish deafened
by high CO2 levels thrust themselves
from the safety of reefs into open water
———–teeming with predators made us
rape easy. The fact that our daughters
would never snorkel with clownfish made us
———-beatific. Suicidal animals being the most
empathetic. Suicidal girls being the most
obvious.  We waded north in blue nail polish.
———Geopolitics interested us. Failed
expeditions interested us.  And final outposts.

When our middle-aged selves appeared
on the diving board in one-piece bathing suits,
——–sober and superior as eels crowning
in muddy water, we waved and floated
toward them until we felt five oceans
——-boil in our bones.

Notes:   the repeated line, Some girls rape easy, is taken from a public comment made by former Wisconsin State Representative Roger Rivard.

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Kara Candito’s first book, Taste of Cherry, won Prairie Schooner Book Prize (University of Nebraska Press, September 2009). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Madison, WI, where she co-curates the Monsters of Poetry Reading Series (www.karacandito.com).