The day of my engagement photos,
I spent 30 minutes, maybe 40,
staring at myself in the magnifying side
of a clunky Clairol lighted mirror,
painting my eyelids with dark-brown shadow,
troweling on thick waterproof mascara,
pushing for that smoky Dallas and Dynasty look.

I wore a lacy blouse,
a replica of one my mother wore
for her Vivien-Leigh-gorgeous
engagement photos in the 1940s.
My grandmother made that blouse for me,
with her own two hands and a tatting shuttle,
her own two feet and a treadle-operated sewing machine.
I wore a bra and camisole under it,
and my straps peeked through the lace yoke.
My soon-to-be husband did not approve.
I was 23 years old. He was 25.

I told him I was raped at 16.
He asked me if I was sure I didn’t want it.
He asked me if I was cheating on him
with a handsome graduate student we both knew.
He asked me why I needed to hand-wash
my pantyhose at the end of a long day.
My answers were never good enough for him.
I married him anyway.

When the paint job on my left eye
didn’t match the paint job on my right, I blew up,
dumped my cheap Maybelline makeup on the floor.
I was my mother,
coming up behind me in the backyard
and yanking towels off the clothesline,
muttering about having to do things yourself
if you want them done right,
rehanging the towels her way.
I was my father,
holding my teenaged brother in a headlock,
thrashing around the kitchen,
slamming into the cabinets and refrigerator,
ending up with two broken ribs.
Why? My brother didn’t want to go to church.
I was a child,
throwing myself on my bed
and pounding the mattress with my fists
when I couldn’t unwrinkle the bedspread.

Years later, after the divorce,
I told my psychologist
that I never smiled at myself
in the mirror
unless I was drunk.