A Nacreous Woman

Sally Wen Mao

To see if the bead is real, you have to bite it. The grit underneath
your teeth tells you it’s a pearl. Nacre, which is inviolable, lines
the whole shell of the oyster with its sheen. Canyons and rivers,
all mother-of-pearl. Cannot burn, cannot break. It is the only
precious jewel produced by an organism—a delicate container:
full of flesh, the oyster resembles a wound.

What does it mean? Or rather: what do I
want it to mean? That I’ve so fully subsumed
my wound, even its most excessive parts?
The raw parts, the foul parts, still attracting
flies, men, monsters? That a cloud of white
flowers sprouts from where my pain begins,
that a pearl will form, making it pretty?

Sally Wen Mao is the author of two books, Oculus, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Mad Honey Symposium. She is the recipient of an NEA fellowship and Pushcart Prize.
Originally published:
June 28, 2021

Featured

The Shapes of Grief

Witnessing the unbearable
Christina Sharpe

Writing in Pictures

Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature
Chris Ware

Garth Greenwell

The novelist on writing about the body in crisis
Meghan O’Rourke

You Might Also Like


Darklight

Rosanna Warren

Dove Song

Hailey Leithauser

Newsletter

Sign up for The Yale Review newsletter and keep up with news, events, and more.