"Against the Grain" an original poem by thepoetmiranda

An original poem by thepoetmiranda

Intro

I wanted to post a poem yesterday, but, like I told my chat, I was headachy all day. There are several poems I considered sharing this week. Yesterday, I had that list narrowed down to three choices. This morning, I got up and immediately knocked one of those off the list—the only one that was actually complete. Don’t expect poets to be reasonable, y’all.

So I had Poem A—mostly complete, needing a few loose ends wrapped up and some editing—and Poem B—has been swirling in my mind for weeks with only a few possible lines noted anywhere. I’m glad I hadn’t put on mascara, yet, when I started writing this morning because I chose Poem B, and Poem B took me to darker places than I expected. Crying happened.

And that’s all the intro you get this time around.

If you enjoy this original poem, buy me a cup of coffee at ko-fi.com/thepoetmiranda and/or subscribe here for more original poems (like this one), readings of poems from the public domain (like this pro-worker poem), and selections from my trans woman mixtape framed memoir, They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name.

The poem text is below, followed by my video reading.

💜Miranda📚

Against the Grain

She was 15—still he—when hair sprouted
from the previously soft skin of her face

and grew-in thick, curly, speckled. Her first
full beard, masculine mask, covered secrets

of her original sin. The pastor said
she looked like Christ himself, then ran his hands

against the grain until all the hairs stood
like pines. The brown and gray of his own beard

reminded her of shag carpet—lock-in
with the youth group, lying on the bare floor

of the fellowship hall at 3 a.m.
asking an invisible G-d how to hate

her own sin while still loving the sinner.
This morn, with warm water and shave oil,

she anointed her face. Brown and gray stubble
stared back at her, along with bright red bumps

still warm from yesterday’s laser treatment.
She pulled the blade, basic Gillette, across

her skin, cutting away again the mask
she wore for them. Then she went back against

the grain of the small pines. She nicked herself
under her chin, letting the blood drip drip

into the sink basin. When all the mask
is gone, drained to the river with wine

red water, she looks up to see herself—
her face they refuse to call imago Dei.

My Reading