Mask of a Suburban Woman

In Mesoamerican folk religion, a nagual (pronounced [na'wal]) or nahual (both from the Nahuat word năhualli [na waxli]) is a human being who has the power to shapeshift... into their tonal animal counterpart.

*****

A mechanical sound of crickets wakes me,

like every morning—my husband's choice

of dawn chorus. I fast-track the ritual:

My husband groans on waking, turns

off the alarm; then the desperate

mental search for shape begins.

What shape will I shift to?

He leaves in pinstripe and tie.

I rise, try to pour into the shape

of the day. The postman delivers a parcel,

not for me—wrong shape. All the while,

he checks out my shape. I let him

—just for a second—then I shut the door.

I walk our golden lab and search

for shapes. Contractors are still building

houses for CEOs who will rarely

be home. Meanwhile,

their unsuspecting wives don’t always shut

their doors. Maybe they hope to find

their younger shapes. I visit the store.

Apples, bananas, tins, bottles;

I fill my trolley full of shapes.

At home I gorge on all of them, running

my finger over a pot-bellied jar, along

the submissive curve of a banana.

Later I read shapes on a page

until they blur like over-watched segments

of a vintage film reel. I'd draw in the dust

on our sideboard; but there is none.

A new neighbour—we’re all new here—

brings me heart-shaped cookies, bought,

not baked, and I form a smile shape with my lips

that sometimes form an ‘O’ shape,

but not for her. I still see remnants

of an ‘O’ shape on her mouth. The postman

in the background sidles away.

I chop, grate, and stir more shapes;

I form the mosaic of an evening meal to fit

the shape of expectation. It’s a safer shape

than the ones out there, where I squeezed

into holes not cut for me. That’s when

I think I lost my shape—or learnt to refashion

my pliant bones.

A man once thought he’d help me and opened

his mac to reveal his shape; but I screamed

and told his wife. She never forgave me.

She never saw the man-shaped ego

that tried to fix me. As if pricks

fix invisible women! I searched the sky

for answers. Or freedom? Small pieces

of me flew into leafless branches, clinging on.

Come down, come back, I pleaded;

my husband pleaded too.

The doctor prescribed some shapes for me;

small, round ones for my head,

square ones for my butt—HRT—

to bend me, shape me into something

I could never be. A pill is not an artist—

not a sculptor who could chip at composite

until a smooth, flawless statue of marble

emerged. I was a kaleidoscope,

turned by others, with my shapes falling,

into random patterns not of my choosing.

But my shapes were not for shifting;

they ricocheted back to me, like lies

or broken promises, delicate needles of glass.

Perhaps my nagual bears unseen wings, perhaps,

I resolved, I didn’t need medication.

Now, when the night makes our bed,

and lamplight blurs my edges,

on the commotion of our sheets I arrange

my feathery fragments into a bird;

a swallow, soaring free, weightless.

*****

Thank you for reading. My Knock knock entry is below if you fancy it