The Divine Feminine
By Shanelle Cabuhat
It was yesterday
When my uncle shaved me bald,
Opening my mind to
Seek every seed, every fruit, every branch of a tree and
Suit any trouble, any trial, any tribulation of feat.
As my hair regrows thick so does my skin,
But that doesn’t mean I bury within
The experiences from which I am known to derive
The good from the bad, the salvation from the sin.
It is today
When my mama points with her lips,
Scowling as if to scrutinize
The marks that stretch my hips,
The volcanic pits that bore my eyes,
The calluses that grace my hands.
But I revel in what she scorns.
In turn I ask,
Am I to be adored or to adorn?
It will be tomorrow
When my Father will sing me to sleep,
Humming the hymn I can no longer fight.
But before I awake to that new life,
He questions
How I loved and where it lied.
I will confess to Him at last!
As immense and dark as the trench
On the slope of my back almost as Atlas.
Then He’ll ooh and ahh when I recite
This story of how I excite and entice
As the New Woman in regained paradise.
Shanelle Cabuhat is an incoming junior at the Academy of Our Lady of Guam who loves reading and web surfing. Cradled by both Filipino and CHamoru cultures, she hopes to immortalize the sublime moments in life through short poems that reflect her sporadic thoughts
