Shani

Shani

“I am touched – I am”- Natalie Diaz

When you dress in red you’re asking for it,

my teacher used to say, worried for us girls

our limbs elongating by the minute, our hips

flaring into sways that had to be reigned in.

But I could not help myself, red blouse,

red lipstick we passed around like the holy cup,

helped each other with the smears on our greedy

lips. Plus, red meant you were loyal to the party,

and why not pretend when your father is

on the Communists’ black list? The past is never

too far. You too, Mary, are almost always painted

red, swaths of cloth rivering around you, protective

of your glaringly feminine body. The desert

is dry red with dust and heat, and there I go

to have a vision. But nothing – no visitation,

no angel to announce a grand plan, just my body

choking on dust, laying my head on red rocks,

holding them in my hand like fire. I am supposed

to find myself here in this wilderness of stone.

Like RuPaul said We’re all born naked,

and the rest is drag. Find me cartwheeling

naked through the rising red cloud to find

the place where my skin ends and everything

else begins. I read somewhere, to protect

what is wild is to protect what is gentle.

When a silkworm breaks from its cocoon,

it is a different creature, did you know?

A moth, blind, unable to fly or eat. Humans did

this, our penchant for covering the body, its apple

secrets in the finest feathers. Manet, however,

painted Luncheon on the Grass with the woman’s

clothes cast off, her gaze meeting ours, peaceful,

unashamed, and luscious cherries & peaches

spilling out of the basket, the men lost in thought

or conversation, who knows? It is her,

present to our stare, her hands and eyes conversing

about safety that I think about as the man

I once loved searches the wettest red within

me, a crumb to find his way back

to himself. What would it be like to wake up,

pile our clothes on the ground, walk into the river

of nothing-etched-only-real, child back into baptism

for the first time, blink open our eyes?

*Shani is ancient Hebrew for red