INTERVIEWS
The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > ISSUE EIGHTEEN: Oct-Dec (03) > Poetry >Arlene Ang - Decline of the Victorian Period

View Search Result
  
My mother taught me early about stains:
Don't mix drawers with the wash.
Blood contaminates even the darkest fabric.
People must never know what goes on
under the crinoline. I was fourteen
and believed in virgins, the pure
thoughts of priests, Mary Magdalene's sins.

Stigma burned my palms long after scrubbing
with soap and boiled water. But Jesus knew
as he played voyeur during Sunday service,
naked on a cross or robed in nun's clothing,
his sleeved arms posing sub-rosa invitation.
My breasts ached for days at the sight of him.

For years I wore black to disguise
possible bleed-throughs of womanhood,
gauze pink lips that could have moistened even
the confessional's velvet curtain,
assume respectability while accepting
smears of male scents in my grandmother's bed.

Lately I have taken to donning flamenco red.
I weary of camouflaging menstruation,
dissimulating blood I had already shed
away from matrimonial sheets. My skirts rouse
the word Tart from mouths. Still
as all turn to appraise the flow of my hips,
I am caressed by something missionary in their gaze.









Arlene Ang lives in Venice, Italy where she edits the Italian Niederngasse (www.niederngasse.com). Her poetry has recently appeared in Dark Moon Rising, Tattoo Highway, Adirondack Review, Cordite, and 2River View. She has received a nomination from VLQ for the 2003 Pushcart Prize.
Enter your email:

Home      Register     About Us/Staff     Submit     Links     Contributors     Advertising     Archives     Blog    Donation    Contact Us    Web Design