The Apostle Paula
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I was riding toward Damascus
to yell at some Christians and maybe
stone a few uninhibited women
when Christ, that cowboy,
saw I couldn’t ride a horse for shit.
Came down as the wind
and whispered, buck, in my pony’s ear.
The next thing you know
I’ve had a vision, a conversion.
I’ve slept in the house of Christians,
and I’m no longer Saul, but Paul.
I know all the Catholic prayers
better than your grandmother.
And still I couldn’t get things right—
always telling women what to do
or even how to wear their hair
in church. O ladies of Ephesus,
surely you know that most of us
need more than one transformation
in our lives. Christ set me straight
a second time by putting me in drag.
And I have to admit, at first,
I thought She was crazy,
coming at me with that makeup brush
as if it were a knife, and I the lamb
of sacrifice, then hog tying me in that corset.
But like most prudishness,
I found mine was rooted in jealousy.
Who doesn’t want to wear
pearl earrings, gold eyeshadow,
and to speak of beautiful things?
I wanted every bit I couldn’t want:
a costly garment, low cut,
velvet, high slit up the thigh.
I wanted breasts and cat eyes,
glue-on lashes, and hair that bumped
the doorframe when I walked
into the room. I wanted to be
noticed by everyone—to glitter
like a stage light at a cabaret.
My whole life till then had been a lip sync
where I kept getting the words
wrong. No longer! Welcome
to the stage the Apostle Paula!
This one goes out to my
Ephesian sisters. I can’t ask
your forgiveness for all the pain.
But dammit! I can sing.
John Steele
