POET'S ANATOMY
.29
tion, he announced himself disappointed. "What a gyp! This is no
trade-there's nothing here."
I got quite used to this sort of examination in childhood. I
underwent a number of them, and reactions were always the same.
I always remained quite passive and uninterested myself.
It
was
only the last, performed by a gynecologist when I was sixteen, which
-as the reader will see- excited me, as Keats said of Cortez, with
a vast surmise.
One apprentice publicityman offered in trade his really long
appendicitis scar and I accepted. A group of robber barons stopped
me in the park and offered to gouge and club me with the blades of
their iceskates
if
I didn't immediately lift up my skirt and take
down my pants. Their enthusiasm puzzled me. I considered refusing,
because it was already getting dark, a late winter afternoon, and I
was afraid I might be cold. But it seemed to me I recognized them.
The bushes into which I had been pushed were part of the small park
grounds of the Children's Museum, where I had gone with friends
after school. After the others left, I had stayed behind to see an
exhibition of sculpture and lantern slides about the facts of birth
and anatomy, entitled "Nature's Miracle." I had seen the same group
of boys with iceskates in the auditorium, I knew. And though their
approach was odd, the idea of being asked to take my small part in
the exhibition of a miracle seemed reasonable. Patiently, I complied.
One of the young toughs said wearily, "See, what'd I tell ya."
Mother raised a great cry when I told her. "Eight years old!"
she wailed. She called Daddy at the office, but he wasn't in. Then
she took me around the corner to the police station and raised a
great cry there. I wa staggered when we were given a patrol car
and two policemen to search for the boys. We toured the neighbor–
hood: I had been at ease in the park but I was frightened in the
patrol car. We slowed up past every group of boys on the streets,
especially those with iceskates, and I began to
think
it would soothe
everybody if I merely pointed my finger at no matter whom. The
policeman kept saying, "There, kid?" and Mother kept threatening,
"When I get my hands on them...." But looking closely, I saw that
her eyes were shut, and this disturbed me. The odd part of
this
ride was that we actually did come across the boys-I recognized
in particular the one who had insulted me by being bored with my
