In light, the dust that gathered on bathroom lime-grime
was extraordinarily beautiful. It was a cloudy full moon
and in that smear of uncleanliness she could see herself
and all her rampant latent potential to be exhumed
yet in that light too she can see harsh-angled reality.
she can see the bad brush she has to deal with
and sometimes scrub-ache in her arms kills her brain,
god and her distress she feels knows no permanent relief,
braless chest at night a cavorting flame on her skin
an anger conceived and birthed in grief
but the smile she wears on her face as she shows
a painting laden down with grief is true
that weight lifting a deeper smile than there has ever, ever been
stretching out into the unfathomable trenches of her embattled body
she is a warrior, Uma is. and she has a best friend who loves her.
She guesses that’s really it – someone who doesn’t have to ask questions
that’s what is important, when you’re standing naked in the light,
angry and true.
Uma has to answer savorless questions—
about why her paintings come out so sad—
people see her in them, in the low-tide lips
and the cavernous shadows that nest in her hips
the day she discovered herself was the first
in a long line of interrogations that conjure grief
a rage stooped in the bones of a beanbag in 2019
her answer to the interrogators is always very simple:
one day she was sitting quietly in the bathroom
she always kept in tragedy-free dark
knees up to her chest on the floor of the bath
foaming with her drifting fingers avoiding her body
and there was a mellifluous wind that shifted the curtain
and provided a precious frenzying glimpse of light.
so of course, in a bubbling rage, she stood to wrench the fabric,
tearing the blockade from its railing.