red is

What follows is my response when asked to guest write for a friend’s column devoted to HIV that appears in an LA newspaper. I decided it along with my collage goddess that hung in a group show to acknowledge HIV/AIDS  should also appear on the blog...

A few years ago, I was preparing for the debut exhibition of my collage Goddesses and wanted to assemble a montage of words to go along with the paper images. Wild women wear red is a phrase I love. It symbolizes a freedom that courses through me each time I sit down to create a Goddess so I began asking all of the women I knew to send me the first thing that came to mind when they heard the words, “wild women…” From their answers came the first of what turned out to be a series of poems inspired by responses to those same two words from participants in a workshop I developed that addresses body image.

Months after the exhibit closed, I was asked to facilitate the workshop for a group of women of color who were HIV positive. I spoke the phrase wild women wear red without making the connection to the symbolic ribbon until we were deep into a very candid discussion that kept coming back to romance, love and desire. I remember going home, the conversation weighing heavily on my soul and writing a piece inspired by our exchange…it became my tribute to them.

red is©

red is
what wild women wear
cashmere wraps, suede strappy sandals, backless dresses, lacy lingerie
kick up their heels dancin’
with pomegranate lips that still plant dreamy kisses.
stand with their hands on her hips
live right now in their bodies
and know
sweet cherries no longer, brim with hope
reap what they've sown and
wonder why….
                             but not for long.

red is a ribbon
         intertwined in our hair
               cinched around our come hither waist
                      pinned on our breast.

screams I’m HERE!

Over the next few months, I came to understand the women’s feelings of isolation from love by choice or abandonment, how much they missed a simple touch evidenced when one of them made a series of collaged hands during a subsequent session...a single hand on white paper, four in total, each full of color and life, beautiful like her, alone like her. She still had so much living to do but wondered, would there be a whom to live it with? She spoke of long tender embraces that no longer were hers, the desire for a quick hug, no need for it to linger if given, just hold her hand…please?

I hugged her long and hard and often and still wonder about ignorance and indifference each time I think about the women in that group. And then I remember how strong and defiant they were, no victims in the room only HIV -- Hope, Inspiration, Victory -- positive about themselves, taking it day by day, supporting each other, living on even when another no longer came to the table reminding them and all of us who care to keep up the fight.

keep your peepers open!®