Their voices reach us as if from the shaft of a well, these long-necked women of Padaung, whose clavicles, depressed by all that brass, reveal the burden of beauty. Over the miles, the years, I shoulder the weight, embrace the wood of our common cross, and under the load, the scars, these bold striations. Slung from my neck, the brass-bordered crucifix like the ring on my hand recalled an earlier day when priest and medicine man shaped the first coil for the five-year-old with fiery promise and a flash of metal. Then divination with relics, with chicken bones for the favored time. Protection from tiger bites, one legend says, and I feel the stripes change subtly as elders rehearse the punishment for adultery. The necklace of habit removed, atrophied muscles let go and the light-headed woman surrenders her weight to a coffin. Meanwhile, these ringing tiers and silver chains, coins swung from the links, tell the world who these women are, identify their tribe. Legs shackled with brass or held in place by detailed prescriptions, reduce their walk to a hobble. The pillow under the chin does not spell comfort, but elegance in position. They cannot tilt the head back to drink sweet water, must bow to sip from a straw. If they set their ornaments aside, against the tribal law, they need a brace or the hand of a friend, merely to keep on breathing. In a Rangoon hospital, X rays screen the skeletal change: collarbone shoved down, ribs displaced, a neck that, year by year, looks longer. The downward pressure on the spine means something has to give. All through the blank December I chose unfrocking, my one alternative, I held my head carefully above the collar, folded the turtleneck twice in a mockery of survival. My lungs filled with water, closing. Whatever raises this voice from a long way down lies close to you as air. Help me to hold up my head. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HER EYES TWIN POOLS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON WHEN I WAS A BIRD by KATHERINE MANSFIELD MY MOTHER LEFT ME by KAREN SWENSON THE WINSOME WEE THING by ROBERT BURNS AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE SMALL CELANDINE by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH FROM HIDDEN SOURCE by JEAN ANDERSON |