Authenticity

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-e-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.

Tel 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 colour.

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

'Bedecked', Victoria Redel