Vulva Art

"You don't know how many calls
I've made today."
Aracelis,
a name I've never heard.
My eye falls on the spot
where the dusky purple on the petals
of my violet diffuses into a softer hue,
a transformation only my shuddering body
can understand.

I still regret my false enthusiasm.

An acquaintance who is trying
to transform herself into a closer creature
to me came forward bravely, deceived
by my carelessness, and in her eyes

growing towards me,
her coloring perfect
and happiness complete
like the agonizing moment
when Grace Kelly kisses
James Stewart hello
in the slowest motion
I know Hitchcock wanted
to torture me eternally.
He wanted me to suffer
the clicking, unsleeping
blink of my eyelids
as I wonder how to capture
that synapse in words.
I hate his perfection.

naked trust and anticipation shaming me
as if I have never put myself in danger.
I destroy her glow with a few words,
clutching a lap full of twisted black dress

crawling with vines
and overblooming flowers
in jacquard cotton,
an O'Keefe painting
with the lights out.
Such blooms are forever
vulnerable to criticism
like my father's,
ready to lump it in
with macrame sculptures
under "vulva art."

Melissa Ray, 1990

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