In Praise of My Manicure

Because I was taught all my life to blend in, I want
my fingernails to blend out: like preschoolers

who stomp their rain boots in a parking lot, like coins
who wink at you from the scatter-bottom of a fountain,

like red starfish who wiggle a finger dance at you,
like green-faced Kathakali dancers who shape

their hands into a bit of hello with an anjali—I tell you,
from now on I and my children and their children

will hold four fingers up—a pallavam, a fresh sprout
with no more shame, no more shrink, and if the bright

colors and glittered stars of my fingertips scare you,
I will shape my fingers into sarpasirassu—my favorite,

a snake—sliding down my wrist and into each finger:
just look at these colors so marvelous so fabulous

say the two snakes where my brown arms once were.
See that movement near my elbow, now at my wrist?

A snake heart can slide up and down the length of its body
when it needs to. You'll never be able to catch my pulse, my shine.




From Oceanic (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author.