Against Beauty
by Em Dial

I must begin with defining beauty 
itself, in order to be heard in halls
so beautiful, themselves, they shook me 
like a quaking aspen set against
the highway & so let’s visit the Beauty 
of Loulan, as so many do, who come 
to that museum in Urumqi,
seeking proof for or against the auburn
of her hair, mummified with lice and comb. 
Beauty, here, meaning defying some odd 
4,000 years of summer, only 3 feet
of salt as protection. Or beauty: proof of 
red being a threat to itself, nightmare
to the state, alchemy against purity.

—

reddened threat to myself, I’m a nightmare 
of statehood, chemist against purity,
and thus beauty. & yet, on the bus, 
at the club, in the comment section, 
they use the word again and again, 
beautiful. The first time I felt it true,
my preschool friend said that I have princess 
eyes. To augment my previous definition,
I felt beautiful, whereas beautiful
means watched. What an odd power it is, 
flowers, shows, jobs, second looks and chances 
thrown at my feet for the shape of my eyes.
But for the purposes of this study,
can an eye be beauty? Can watching be watched?

—
 
For the purposes of study, can I
be beautiful? Would the watchers watch
and measure the drool pooling under men’s tongues 
one one axis, the hue of my labia
on the other. Five years before I was born, 
a study found that the more faces 
overlaid like veneer after veneer
the more attractive the face staring back.
Even earlier, another study 
smeared faces of vegetarians and
criminals together, finding their offspring 
more beautiful than their origins.
& even before that: Hypothesis: Beauty 
loves the average, marks where disease isn’t.

—

An Ugly Hypothesis: Beauty
is as common as an unriddled body.
All of the largest apple trees I’ve seen
mark the sites of first settlements. Trees can’t 
just be trees. Instead, the worms burrowing, 
symbols for theft. The red dripping off branches, 
not nourishment, but where you feared this was 
headed. Please, let there be a gorgeous good 
somewhere, in which a tree represents not
a country, a genocide, a ripe body, 
instead, something holding up heavens 
that I will never dream to understand. 
Yes, beauty I know well as a blood state.
Goodness, distant as trees comparing jewels.

—

Yes, I can state the word covered in blood
yet haven’t admitted whose. The trees? Jewels? Mine?
Beauty can be both the maw and gnash 
the fat bubbling in the pan and the fire. 
A case study: in Mandarin, America— 
měi guó or beautiful country.
Born out of phonetic coincidence
or not. Taiwan, once called in Portuguese
Ilha Formosa, beautiful island, 
Then, just Republic of Formosa. My
Grandfather found my Ama so beautiful. 
They built a new island and language here. 
The article headline reads: Taiwan Shrugs 
Off War with China, Trusts Daddy America.

—

Articles shrug off the idea of war
as the tug of an island between mainlands. 
I can’t be so blasé. Like so many,
I wouldn’t exist without at least three
& yet this does not endear me to bombs. 
Compare the resulting cloud to a mushroom, 
the resulting crater to those of the moon,
and I will do something so hideous
you’ll know the result of war to be nothing 
of celestial dust and toadstool.
Only bodies born of empire and bodies
lost at their expense. This is besides the point. 
I don’t even want to say the word again.
You get the point: roses, diamonds, islands, war.

—
 
Let’s play a game of association:
Roses, diamonds, islands, war, what comes to mind? 
A body entombed in salt, pests, and desert?
A nation calling her beautiful and mine? 
The world, a garden of thorns and petals? 
I came here to try and capture the word 
that’s made me feel like sex and oddity 
since I careened into this world too soon. 
I’m leaving, naive and bare, as she did.
No defense against the word tacked on 
to her name, nations discoursing over 
the shape of her eyes, millennia later.
Here we end with beauty, as borders racing 
through blood, like echoes down a hallway.