Bedecked - Victoria Redel

Tell me it's wrong
the scarlet nails my son sports
or the toy store rings he clusters 
four jewels to each finger. 

He's bedecked.
I see the other mothers looking at the star choker,
the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock,
Sometime I help him find sparkel clip-ons 
while he says sticker earrrings look too fake.

Tell me I should teach him it's wrong to love the glitter,
that a boy's only a boy who'd love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into the corners
or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping off tracks into the tub. 

Then tell me it's fine-really-maybe even a good thing
-a boy who's got some girl to him, 
and I'm right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in the park.

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means-
this way or that- but for the way facets set off prisms
and prisms spin up everywhere 
and from his own jeweled body
he's cast rainbows made every shinging true color. 

Now try to tell me-man or woman-your heart was ever once that brave