after Leila Chatti
Mediatrix of All Graces? No.
Call her instead scrubber of all pots,
soiled undergarments, and blood-stained rags.
Men who never even knew her
veiled her with “purity.”
A crown of thorny stars. Did her clitoris
make them nervous? Her uterus, at least,
was useful.
I think we get to redefine what’s holy.
Dirty hands, sweaty brows, the moisture of her labors
in rivulets between her brown breasts.
(No one tells us, do they, that it will be
like this, the toil and constant wanting,
theirs and ours.)
I can’t approach a Queen
of Angels, bathed in haloes otherworldly;
the Divine Mother I need
weeps in the bathroom stall with me,
holds my hair, nods knowingly
at our locker room talk, where I tell
the younger ones a squeezy bottle is key
postpartum.
She fondly remembers
luxurious public latrines in Egypt.
How her heart leapt to her throat
when her rascal toddler
ate the entire bag of dates and puked.
We face each other
on the couch to talk,
a pint of ube ice cream between us, no shame
about our belly rolls and rectoceles,
our bodies past fecundity
holier than ever
with every passing moment.
O Mary, this version of you I can turn to,
Undoer of Knots,
who helps us find
amid the tangles of our lives
our trapped holiness:
doves to set free.