Inspired by the many ways the natural world illuminates humanity, poet Stacey Forbes’ work is published or forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Carve Magazine, Haunted Waters Press, and the Blue Mountain Review. Her poem “Shameless” appears in the Summer 2022 issue of Carve.

There’s a really interesting turn in this poem — the mother’s underthings were not engineered for awe, but she worships the sun. Can you say more about this “but” and the contrast that you’ve set up?

The mother (Alice) will not be body shamed. She has broken free from the confinements of what society deems beautiful or socially acceptable. She is unfettered by a younger woman’s concerns about age, weight, sex appeal, and the ravages of a life richly lived. Her body carries the heavy scars of time and childbirth, but her heart is weightless and full of gratitude. She is ready to worship anywhere, at any time. In this way, she enjoys a freedom that I admire…and envy.

There are two types of worship here, worshipping the sun and holding fast to a rosary. Or perhaps it’s one worship expressed in two simultaneous actions. How is this poem defining worship? And how does worship dovetail with the narrator’s witness?

The simple act of worshipping the sun — and worshipping Jesus — springs from the same place: a hunger to hold something sacred in our hands. The warmth of a desert spring on the mother’s unapologetically bare skin emboldens her to open herself to infinite, unconditional love of the divine. As the light embraces her, she holds fast to the rosary, rooting herself to this world and reaching into the next in a single gesture. Witnessing this scene from the security and sterility of her house, the narrator is both enchanted and afraid. She wants to experience pure, unabashed reverence, but knows that such freedom comes at a cost: perhaps old age, perhaps a diversion from norms, perhaps rebellion against the societal guardrails make the narrator feel safe.

This poem centers on an older woman wearing a grayed bra, and the last lines end with consecration. I find myself very struck by the idea of an aging mother’s “underthings” and how those items make contact with the very messy, undeniably real body — the body of a woman who bore six children. How do you see an unromantic object — a worn bra that makes the poem’s narrator think of death — leading to the consecration of “shamelessness of blood and love” ? 

Alice’s body was roughly sculpted by love as she carried, bore and nurtured six children. Babies and gravity pulled on her breasts, reshaping objects of beauty and desire as communion cups for her family. In old age, Alice finds that she is hungry for intimacy with herself, and with God. After a lifetime of giving, she is ready to receive. She searches for grace in her grown son’s backyard, shamelessly welcoming the light and warmth that embrace her time-ravaged body as she prays the rosary in her bra. Her longing for divine love is holy, and her naked faith transforms her greying bra into a liturgical garment; a vestment for her own consecration. 

Who are other poets, writers, or artists you admire that can find the sacred in the used and everyday? 

Three poets have inspired me to explore the divine spark in everything, and to draw the sacred from what may appear ordinary or profane to the casual observer. These poets are Ross Gay (Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude), Louise Glück (The Red Poppy), and Michele Miller (Holy). Michele’s work has helped me to be comfortable in the gentle tension between the profane and the sacred — to fearlessly connect with our humanity and our divinity…with love and kindness for both.