IN PRAISE OF MY MANICURE

Because I was taught all my life to blend in, I want

my fingernails to blend out: like pre-schoolers

who stomp their rain boots in a parking lot, like coins

who wink at you from the scatter-bottom of a fountain,

like red starfish who wiggle a finger dance at you,

like green-faced Kathakali dancers who shape

their hands into a bit of hello with an anjali—I tell you

from now on, me and my children and their children

will hold four fingers up—a pallavam, a fresh sprout

with no more shame, no more shrink, and if the bright

colors and glittered stars of my fingernails scare you,

I will shape my fingers into sarpasirassu—my favorite,

a snake—sliding down my wrist and into each finger:

Just look at these colors so marvelous so fabulous

say the two snakes where my brown arms once were.

See that movement near my elbow, now at my wrist?

A snake heart can slide up and down the length of its body

when it needs to. You’ll never be able to catch my pulse, my shine.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil