Unknowns

By Robin Q. Malin

There’s a lot of things I don’t know.

I don’t know what I believe.
I don’t know who I love.
All I know right now is that
when I look into her eyes
I long to trace her cheekbones,
to touch her lips,
to stroke her cherry colored hair
under the stars.
I know that she is beautiful,
that I am not supposed
to want what I think I might want.

I want to write to my father’s god,
to tell him that
I just want to dance with her,
to ask him why the sound
of his silence is so deafening.

I’m sorry.
This poem was supposed
to be about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
That’s where I started,
because I remembered
the soft sighs, the dissenting
voices of my parents
on the day when marriage
became a fuller and more
encompassing word,
and I don’t remember their
words but I remember
that they felt heavy
and red and broken
and I didn’t know why.

I remember a debate,
a debate that should not
have needed to be a debate
about if because
my name is Woman
it is also Meek, it is also
Equal (But In A Different
And Lower Way).
I remember that Ruth
said let there be nine,
there’s been nine men,
and I wonder if the disciples
were all women,
would scripture be called
blasphemy?
I don’t know.

So now I will tell you what I do know.

I know that the divinity I know
is there in the flickers
of light that shine on her hair,
in the sunset heavy clouds,
in the weight of words
that deny hatred a place
of power.

I know that if there is a heaven,
I want to weave a crown of flowers
and send them up to Ruth,
and ask her how she knew
that life was worth the tears
it took to make it worth living.

Photo credit: Miss Ayumaii Kawaii via a Creative Commons license.