“God supports my waxing habit.”
—Khudejha Asghar
The day Auntie A saw my sister’s pussy
hairs crawling out & around her underwear
so long that if you ripped through the tangles
you could part them into pigtails
was the day we were all given our own
pair of scissors & told to read namaaz.
Your hairiness is against Allah’s will
my Auntie scolded, the disappointment
lined on her too-young face. The three
of us sisters lined up to wash our feet
in the tub, our shame quieting us as the wadu
water splashed all the way to our arms.
Khudejha had to do Astaghfirullah, repenting
for her evils as we cut each lock
of hair, discarding them in a plastic bag
we got from the corner store
because they were too thick to flush down
our struggling toilet. The next day, we sisters
woke at 5am to read the Qur’an,
massacring the scripture in our American
mouths. We read the Surah about not painting
your nails or altering any part of your body
& wondered about our sheared bushes,
once a part of us & now finding shelter
in some smelly garbage. Maybe we misunderstood
the Surah. Maybe we were outside Allah’s creations.
But we knew better than to question my Auntie’s law.
We speculated the Qur’an hadn’t ever imagined
hairiness like ours, so vast, it was its own sin.