Threadbare
Julia Balén
Some would say
I hang on to things
too long
A work shirt
blue faded to almost white
sleeves frayed
the pocket hanging at a corner
where a spot of breast flesh
peeks through
They tell me
her suffering is momentary
she will not recall this pain
of not knowing
how we know her--
the struggle etched
in the scrunch of her face
as she searches
through holes
where her memories swirl
in darkness
disconnecting
all sense of relations
Each time I put it on
I wonder when the final thread will give--
the one that renders it
no longer a shirt
Some would say
I hang on to things
too long
A work shirt
blue faded to almost white
sleeves frayed
the pocket hanging at a corner
where a spot of breast flesh
peeks through
They tell me
her suffering is momentary
she will not recall this pain
of not knowing
how we know her--
the struggle etched
in the scrunch of her face
as she searches
through holes
where her memories swirl
in darkness
disconnecting
all sense of relations
Each time I put it on
I wonder when the final thread will give--
the one that renders it
no longer a shirt
About the author
Associate Professor and Faculty Director of the Center for Multicultural Engagement at California State University Channel Islands, Julia Balén has a Ph.D. in Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies with a focus on issues of embodiment and power relations and has published on feminist, lesbian, and queer theory and practice in an anti-racist/classist context. Some representative publications include: “Erotics, Agency, and Social Movement: Communities of Sexuality and Musicality in LGBT Choruses” in The Queer Community: Continuing the Struggle for Social Justice, ed. Richard G. Johnson III, (San Diego, CA: Birkdale Publishers, 2009) and “Practicing What We Teach” in Women’s Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics, ed. Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Agatha Beins (Rutgers University Press, 2005).
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.