Ars Poetica as Jacob Wrestling the Angel
by Siobhan Jean-Charles
“And he said, ‘Let me go, for the day breaketh’; And he
said, ‘I will not let thee go, except thou bless me’.”
–Genesis 32:26, Webster’s Bible
In childhood, I was taught the best thing a woman could be was
dead or full of pain. My youth group learned about St. Gianna,
who refused an abortion and died a week after her fourth child’s birth.
St. Catherine of Sienna, told the only beautiful part of her was
her waterfall of hair. She shaved her head and stopped eating.
Alone in my backyard, I swallowed dirt, teeth turning clay-red.
Years later, I named myself after St. Bernadette for my Confirmation,
who ate mud while digging for healing waters with her hands.
Watching The Sound of Music, I adored Maria, her pixie cut and canary
voice, swinging her arms among the fir trees to embrace the sky.
I wanted to be a nun, forgetting Maria was exiled from the abbey
for her full-throated singing, for releasing the music from church.
One mid-pandemic Christmas, I released my hair from its satin bonnet
and visited my aunts. I continued the rituals, abandoned during lockdown–
bleached my teeth until the enamel glowed, drank only water,
braided my hair. I couldn’t look a mess around my aunts.
Yellow as I am, gifted whitening cream which burned my childhood
citrine skin. Its warning label a scramble of French. Bless my mother,
envied by her sisters for her complexion, anointing me in mercury.
Bless her black knuckles. For the first time in months, I looked
myself in the eye. My skin was clear and my cheekbones sharp.
I turned my head to gaze at the nose I once avoided, once thought grotesque.
In the mirror, beauty at last visited me like a daytime comet.
I’m vain, declared my auntie, who looks good with no hair
or a Mohawk. Auntie, I’m vain, too.
And aren’t there worse flaws? Of the seven sins, isn’t this
the least deadly? The film claims Maria returns to the convent
out of faith to keep her vows, but secretly loves the wealthy captain.
In her autobiography, Maria says it wasn’t her choice to marry.
I thought I wanted to be a nun, but I was unholy, I was sacrilegious.
I wanted a shrine, a stained-glass window and portrait.
I wanted a myrrh scented chapel. I wanted to be a golden calf.
Beauty’s beacon blinded me. Still, I’m holding beauty’s hand,
gently. I’ll dye my hair silver, won’t grieve when it leaves
with the dawn. Beauty–bless this syntax, these altars and merlot.