NEW POEM: Morning Glory (Whole Once Again)
Morning Glory (Whole Once Again)
There are no words for this: standing naked in front of the mirror,
silver thong on the bathroom floor, sad, I look at myself:
aghast, in the morning light, at the pinkness of my nipples,
how they look like little French cookies; they're so measly,
my robe and my body doily lie in a disheveled, bashful pile at my feet
and I tear up, choking back a sob while in the nude.
With no clothes on at all, I depress the button
on the can and watch, as the sensitive skin gel begins to pile up,
a shimmering green pudding in the palm of my hand.
Yuck. The view from behind me here is startling:
the spirits in this house must surely notice my ass and legs,
how delicate, seashell-pale and tight they look in the light of a new dawn;
the only sound in the air is a soft, polite slurping noise
which is me, sipping my coffee carefully, gently,
and, like I said, bare-ass naked.
It would be against the law for you to see me like this,
disrobed, genitals obvious and in plain view,
and I wonder how any God could call himself a God
if he can allow a coupla dollops of Gillette Xtra Care
Shaving Gel with Aloe to spill so surreptitiously,
so coquettishly into my coffee mug.
We've all got these troubling siblings in our reflections
we would rather not acknowledge
but the fact is I want to be that shy someone
I see at cafes and dances but I've never known how.
Wish I had the courage to go on up and talk to him
and find out just what it is that makes me tick.
There's no one who can sing and cry at the same time, at least,
not while trying to work a lather of shaving foam all over the face;
there's new knowledge now, there is pain as I make a mistake
and suck down some Gillette's instead of the Hazelnut I meant to swallow;
the whole time naked as the day that I was born.
My completely naked body is shiny with perspiration now
and I'm crying, because I've accidentally swallowed two mouthfuls
of shaving cream. I'm also crying because of the past;
I don't want it to happen but my thoughts turn to my childhood,
to the afternoon my parents sent me by myself to that van on the street
to buy an ice cream and the scoop of chocolate fell off the cone
because I was running, careless and excited, and as this memory hits me
I know it would take an awful lot of clothes, more than I own,
to make me not as naked as I am right now.
To anyone illegally watching me in my bathroom window
this has to look as though I've used a birthday cake the wrong way;
working my hands absently over my shirtless chest,
gobs of shaving cream plopping from my chin
to the ledge of the sink; my eyes widen when I think
about a white chest hair and blood from the nick of a blade.
I don't have time for this but when I look down at my body,
when I look at these naked gifts from heaven protruding from me
I can see that I have all the time in the world for this.
The loved ones who have come and then gone,
watching over me now, they've got to be wondering
if this is Cool Whip on my neck; I try to care but can't
since I've lost everything to the busy, impersonal and expert hands of time
and so I whisper “I miss you”, twice, the only prayer I know,
to the invisible ones I used to love when they were alive and still do,
the dead so dear to me I can feel their eyes on me in the shower:
every single inch of my body au naturel and warm,
every unclothed curve, every crevice and special hair
I am more than a mere flesh-and-blood guest book
for the dearly departed to sign; these nipples,
these soapy thighs, these shameless tears of joy -
they're mine.
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August 12, 2009 by Rich Boucher.