Summary

In the first poem in the collection, “Jordan Convinced Me That Pads Are Disgusting,” the speaker describes her experience using tampons for the first time. Hesitant to try them at first, she ultimately relents when her friend Jordan tells her, “They make your panties smell/like dirty bike chains” (3). Up until this point she had resisted using tampons because of her fear of her own body, or more specifically, “of the undiscovered crater, the muscle that holds and pulls/and keeps and sheds” (3). Jordan offers to apply the tampon for her, as the two are already familiar with one another’s naked bodies, having compared them many times before. However, when Jordan “[wedges] the packed cotton into [the speaker],” the speaker blacks out and falls onto the bathroom floor and Jordan telling her, “Now you are ready to swim” (3).

The second poem, “Ode...