Joanne Dwyer

Harem

I don't get out much--socially, for adult pleasure.
      But I read a lot.
Most recently I read about Turkish Harems,
      learned the words: odalisque, la belle esclave.
I learned that having hair on one's private parts
      was considered a sin.
And the enslaved women whitened their faces
      with the pulp of almonds and jasmine.
I drive my daughter to her ceramics class
      where not only do I admire her hands in red clay,
but also the muscled arms of her female teacher.
      At the harem baths women inspected each other intimately,
vigilantly, scanning skin for signs of new growth.
      When needed, a burning paste was applied and then scraped
with the shell of a blue-lipped mussel, removing hair and follicle.

      I learned that castrated men stood guard over the harem.
Sometimes the women took these beardless men as lovers.
      I learned that even after silverware was introduced into the harem,
around 1830, the women preferred their hands, maintaining
      that taste is first transmitted through the fingertips.
I learned the Koran allowed each man four wives
      and as many female slaves as he could afford.
The average age in a harem was seventeen.
      Opium was ingested nightly,
causing insomnia, then fitful dreams of homelands,
      amnesia when the sun rose.

My husband warns me against the dangers of being alone
      with my imagination; offers to trim my pubic hair.
In a night of madness Ibrahim Sultan had his entire harem
      put inside sacks and drowned.
Into the Strait of Bosporus
      where between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea
French sailors rescued one odalisque and brought her to France.
      The French already had a name for Ibrahim:
Le Fou de Fourrures, because of his passion
      for furs and fat women.
I learned that the color of the harem women's mendils
      (handkerchiefs) conveyed unspoken messages:
blue meant hope for union, and black hopelessness and separation.
      And the dream I had two nights ago
about a bald and naked woman rising
      from the blue-tiled water of a swimming pool
is making sense to me:
      The water removed the veil.
And last night, I dreamt of the transference of crushed shell
      into my mouth, delivered by a stranger's lips.

I bought a Persian Cold Wax Hair Removal kit from the
      health food store, and last month my husband and I went to a wedding.
We sat at a table with an electrician and his wife
      and a single man who had been to prison for drugs.
Perhaps because I don't get out much, and because
      I am obsessed with a fear of jails,
I asked the single man for jail stories.
      Picture this: You are locked in a room
with one-hundred-and-one other prisoners sleeping on cots.
      Several men descend upon a cot and swaddle an inmate in a grey blanket
so the victim's cries are muted, and the assailants' fists unmarked.
      The men then punch and kick and head-bang him into unconsciousness.
And you don't dare to rise from your cot in protest, or defense--
      Instead you feign sleep.

The electrician's wife became uncomfortable
      and changed the topic to plastic surgery:
Her sister is married to a plastic surgeon in Dallas,
      whose specialty is facelifts.
The sister had a breast job done by her husband's friend.
      The deluxe wife-of-a-doctor-job entailed the removal of each nipple,
the insertion of implants and the return of the nipples.
      Unfortunately, the nipples no longer match-up horizontally.
But what I have trouble vacating from my mind
      is the vision of two severed nipples lying disembodied
on a table of surgical steel, left marked from right,
      submerged in a saline solution, waiting.

I suppose razors were not safe in the hands of harem women.
      It is said that Mohammed had altruistic motives
when sanctioning polygamy--envisioning it as a solution to female
      infanticide. All of my daughter's pots came out of the kiln unbroken
and hair flowers on her in new places, coaxed by the lengthening days.
      Like I said I don't get out much,
but there are no prison guards or eunuchs
      standing at my door, preventing my exit.
Nor a secret lover awaiting a sign
      from the color of my scarf.
I have yet to use the hair removal kit
      as the instructions warn: skin must be free of oil and dirt.

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Joanne Dwyer lives outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received a degree in Creative Writing from the College of Santa Fe. She is currently working on her first manuscript in the low-residency program at Warren Wilson College. contents | previous | next