by Hali Sofala-Jones
“We envision a world where wildlife and humans flourish together.”
–Zoo Atlanta, Vision Statement
Sometimes I wonder
if the little girls from that day
asked their mothers why
they couldn’t go inside the restroom–
the one marked with a bald figure
in a dress, pointing the way–
the shape I’d been born into,
and still, never quite enough.
Do they ask why the three men,
all elbows and righteousness,
called themselves zookeepers?
Lion tamers, guarding the gate.
Keeping the young safe
from the predator just beyond the threshold.
Do they remember their mothers’ hands
tight on the stroller handle?
Did they hear the voice:
“This is the ladies’ room!”
rip through the air
like a leather strap,
the word woman turned accusation,
then punchline?
The whip-crack of laughter:
“He says he is a woman.”
I used to satisfy standards.
The markers I had–
hair, color, curve–
the soft camouflage of safety,
scraped off by sickness.
In recovery, I was a body
no longer legible,
a shape that made people stare
and then pretend they hadn’t.
I was a Rorschach test:
some saw threat,
some saw pity,
none saw me.
And when I opened the stall,
when I stepped out
into the corridor’s cold silence,
I saw them.
Not just the men–
but the women, too.
Lined up with their daughters.
They did not speak.
They did not look away.
I lifted my scarred hands,
slender-fingered like my mother’s,
to my face and wept.
They filed forward–
quiet, orderly,
like a line advancing
to the next exhibit.
Hali Sofala-Jones is a Samoan-American writer from Eatonton, Georgia. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from The Rumpus, Main Street Rag, Slipstream, CALYX, The Missouri Review, Blue Mesa Review, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series. She is the author of Afakasi | Half-Caste (Sundress Publications, 2019). She teaches in Middle Georgia and enjoys traveling with her family and watching her daughter play softball. Learn more at halisofalajones.com.