Bush Poem

Poetry by Taylor Tieder

I like to think the term bush

      came about because a woman in 1969

    forgot to zip up her flared jeans and

started parading down the street.

 

 It took two daft looks for her

      to realize the draft by her fly. She

glanced at the ground and saw her

    windswept pubic hair peeking out.

 

        To her right, there was a shrub in

which she compared her undergrowth

      with. I like to imagine I am her when

         I haven’t shaved.

 

I am her when I stand in the body

      scanner and the bearded TSA agents

    dare me to raise my arms higher,

same with answering lecture questions

 

    from balding professors. I am her

      when my sister asks to go to

the pool and all I do is slap on

  a two-piece and sunscreen, when

 

      the jacuzzi is packed with teenage

boys yet I strut out of the water,

      face gleaming, my bikini line hair

      draped and dripping.

 

I am her when there’s curls sprouting

    from the backs of my thighs and I still

        slide into a pair of denim shorts,

when I cross my legs in a desk

 

  and my smooth classmates side-eye

    the prickliness. Maybe one day

they’ll forget to zip up their pants.

About the Author:

Taylor Tieder (Poetry) is a senior at Florida State University majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Film. She is a fiction editorial assistant for The Kudzu Review and a fiction reader for Southeast Review. Her poetry has appeared in The Kudzu Review.

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