Across her belly, she
draws lines and curves. It's dark now, yet with
the window shades only half drawn the light of a
waning moon blocks off a wavy trapezoid of pale
light across her legs. She borders the light with
her paintbrush, dripping azure paint onto the cream-colored
sheets. She creates characters in a make believe
eastern language, crossing her forearm with calligraphy
no one but she can read. The meaning eludes her
between intervals of frozen comprehension, so she
writes more and more, outlining the veins at her
wrist, circling through the palm of one hand then
bridging her thumbs to shift the brush into her
right hand down the slippery slope of skin and across
and up a callused ridge to her other palm. When
she presses her hands together, cupped to receive
a blessing, she reads there a curse, to seduce and
to repel. The light dims as clouds scurry to swallow
the moon. She lifts the paintbrush and dips it into
her inkwell.
She feels like a sacrifice, a virgin of golden flesh,
prepared for slaughter by the cave of a dragon.
Or a daughter sold to an unknown nobleman, tattooed
with henna for her wedding night.
She forms her lips into a blind kiss and gently
brushes the paint from one deep corner over the
full red swelling to the other corner, then back
again, along a lower path, where she pauses once
to stroke a line down the center of her lip to
her chin. In her hand-held ebony mirror, she sees
a stranger, a blue-streaked concubine, a corpse
for embalming. She dips her fingers into a shallow
bowl by her elbow and spreads the chalky pale
blue powder across her forehead, covering her
taut skin. With two fingers of each hand, she
smears the powder over her eyebrows, wiping away
the weary darkness tainting the clear skin beneath
her eyes, then brushing her closed fingers past
her cheeks, a swipe of color leaving trails of
blue dust falling towards her shoulders. Gently,
swiftly, she pats her fingertip against her lip,
testing for dryness. She applies another coat
of paint, then another, until the paint is smooth
and glossy and thick. When she closes her mouth,
she feels not the skin of her lips but a shell
of paint. In the mirror, she sees a mask and is
satisfied.
She stands and gazes at herself full length in
the mirror behind the door. She shifts her body
to the right and left, twisting her hips, holding
her right leg out straight and then bending it
at the knee and lifting it like a ballerina, standing
on tiptoe to twirl her body full circle. She has
become unreadable, even to herself. A cipher,
a creature to be displayed. She spreads her arms
like wings, bends her knees and crouches before
her image. Her painted hands race along her thighs,
around to her hips and buttocks. Between her legs,
her lips are parted. She feels that she is receptive,
damp and wanting.
When she stands again, she wraps her hands around
her hair, pulling it back severely and tying it
into a thick knot. With her arms raised, her breasts
seem fuller. Her nipples, circled in blue paint,
point, sloping upwards, towards the highest edge
of the mirror. She can imagine invisible strings
pulling them aloft, and her body shifts forward,
as if it were about to levitate. One elbow she
swings back, and the other she swings forward,
toward the mirror, shadows crossing and re-crossing
the cryptic writing on her belly and thighs.
She whispers, this is me now, and finally, she
is ready. |
