I’m thinking you grew up like me,
taught to keep your knees together,
be sweet, obedient, let your grandparents kiss
and hug you even though you didn’t like it.
Did your mother teach you, like mine, to kick
those boys between the legs if they get fresh?
Did you figure on your own how to insert a tampax,
or was it your girlfriends who gave directions
through the bathroom door?  Did you learn
to French kiss and where to put your hands
by practicing in the camp bunk, or was it a boy?
Maybe you remember the winter chill of your thighs
as you walked to school in pleated skirt and knee sox.
If you are still with me, ask why no one told us
about the sneaky transformations of old age.
That parts will thin and shrink and fall. 
That your body will learn to sweat, bring to mind
every smelly man you ever knew.  And not only
whiskers on your chin that you now recall
your grandma plucking at her dressing table,
but eyebrows which will suddenly sprout
the wild and wiry hairs of your Uncle Joe.