In the Pink

I am in the pink of health, the pink of condition,
the body and perfection of something yet unsaid.

I drink Lydia Pinkhams vegetable compound, 
concocted in my own earthen pot:

boiled unicorn root and black cohosh, 
fenugreek seed and angelica with feathery leaves. 

Some alcohol carries the tincture to my uterine tissues. 
Have you visited The Museum of Menstruation?  

I will lift my pinkie from a porcelain cup
looped with flowers and gilded, its dainty dish.

Remember pinking shears, how they zigzag the edge
of gingham, little points sticking up so precisely?

At seven I had conjunctivitis.  My weepy red eyes  
stared at snow crystals falling beyond the windows.

Somewhere in the San Juans, pink salmon were rolling 
out of streams, silver ribbed, tiles of flesh tattered.

Pink was once sewn as triangles-onto the clothes 
of homosexual men soon annihilated.

Theodor Adorno, I do remember how you said:
writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. 

Still, somewhere inside, voices keep whispering
the ordinary prayers of this human soul.

At night the sky pinkens.  I refuse to say it is pollution 
hanging on the horizon, our sun a crimson wound. 

Certainly it is the brilliance of another day gone by 
in the pink of unspeakable perfection.


 

© Jan Lee Ande