Bedecked

by Victoria Redel

Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy

store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.

He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star

choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.

Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says

sticker earrings look too fake.

Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a

boy’s only a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,

battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping

off tracks into the tub.

Then tell me it’s fine - really - maybe even a good thing - a boy

who’s got some girl to him,

and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in

the park.

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son

who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means -

this way or that - but for the way facets set off prisms and

prisms spin up everywhere

and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows - made every

shining true color.

Now try to tell me - man or woman - your heart was ever once

that brave.