My mother taught me to count the days
from one red circle on the calendar to when

another should appear, that for three days prior
and seven days afterwards, I wasn’t to reach

for the panties in the top drawer of my chest,
the nice ones my grandmother inventoried

then hung in their shining plastic sacks
from the silver-armed racks in the Parisian’s

in Five Points. For ten days a month, 
they were forbidden in favor of their lesser

peers in the lower drawer, vaguely white pairs
bought for five bucks or less in fat packs

from Walmart, their elastic banding a wide
pink stripe around my waist at first but stretched

beyond efficacy after three wears. My mother
taught me. How an accident is nothing

more than an accident, something of the body
beyond the self’s control. How the self had still

better damn well be prepared. How to flatten
the flapping tongue of a pantyliner every morning

my body started a rumor about red. How blood
stains could be bettered but never erased

by cold water washes. Soon my circles swarmed
the calendar, coming with a frequency inexplicable

by any math my mother or I knew. My drawers
filled with cheap cotton, better for bleach or,

more often, the trash can, and my top drawer pairs 
gathered their pastels, the bows and roses celebrating 

their perfectly constructed waistbands, and winged 
themselves away. I pulled the stopper and filled 

the sink’s basin, plunged another pair of underwear
in water as cold as I could stand, watched 

the fabric float. Gray-white scroll. A word scrawled 
red in a language I knew I’d never understand.