MINE IS NOT THE BODY OF A GREEK GODDESS
Honestly, how many millions of blog entries begin with "it's late and I should be sleeping"? How dull! ...yet I am no exception.
It is late. And I should be sleeping. And my hair should not be so greasy, and I should be a bit prettier (just enough to stun others), and I should be finding a little peace in this wonderful symphony playing on the radio.
Instead I'm sitting up with my oh-so-shiny 'do, thinking about my belly. Which is why (I think) this poem bubbled to the surface tonight. Either that, or my reading Rachel Zucker's collection of poems in The Bad Wife Handbook has subconsciously inspired me.
Here's to my body! Here's to the columns holding up buildings over all the pretty ladies! :)
MINE IS NOT THE BODY OF A GREEK GODDESS
truly I am shaped more
like a corinthian column:
massive, yes, stable,
as if I might hold
a great stone above my head with ease.
I am a sturdy trunk of a woman,
a creature that bears both tragedy and children.
body of comfort.
never transformed but
evolved
from maiden,
with hair spraying upward
in leafy flips and perpetually wilting edges—something
that would become
a tree but has been made stiff as marble—
you are a sweet husband
padding from one room of the art museum to the other,
offering me your arm
grasping for memories of boyhood mythology lessons.
it is a talent of mine to tune you out
while I contemplate.
I am, yes, most definitely,
born of an oil painting and the myth
sprung from the pillowy brains
of an artist long dead.
I am there in that scene of Circe’s palace,
yes, watching the swine
but I am holding up the front step
robeless and without those blue eyes of hers;
I am here as well at Hera’s temple
waiting for a sacrifice I suppose
but I am balancing the altar, bloodstained
yet lacking a sense of wrath.
you are so endearingly daft
husband of mine
with your comments on perspective
hardly enough to disguise your lingering
over the breasts displayed in every Titian window.
you: my love, my roof, my clear sky,
you say you wish women were painted today
as they were then
so full and...full
the room rattling around my fiercest whisper
for the love of God honey focus on the architecture
It is late. And I should be sleeping. And my hair should not be so greasy, and I should be a bit prettier (just enough to stun others), and I should be finding a little peace in this wonderful symphony playing on the radio.
Instead I'm sitting up with my oh-so-shiny 'do, thinking about my belly. Which is why (I think) this poem bubbled to the surface tonight. Either that, or my reading Rachel Zucker's collection of poems in The Bad Wife Handbook has subconsciously inspired me.
Here's to my body! Here's to the columns holding up buildings over all the pretty ladies! :)
MINE IS NOT THE BODY OF A GREEK GODDESS
truly I am shaped more
like a corinthian column:
massive, yes, stable,
as if I might hold
a great stone above my head with ease.
I am a sturdy trunk of a woman,
a creature that bears both tragedy and children.
body of comfort.
never transformed but
evolved
from maiden,
with hair spraying upward
in leafy flips and perpetually wilting edges—something
that would become
a tree but has been made stiff as marble—
you are a sweet husband
padding from one room of the art museum to the other,
offering me your arm
grasping for memories of boyhood mythology lessons.
it is a talent of mine to tune you out
while I contemplate.
I am, yes, most definitely,
born of an oil painting and the myth
sprung from the pillowy brains
of an artist long dead.
I am there in that scene of Circe’s palace,
yes, watching the swine
but I am holding up the front step
robeless and without those blue eyes of hers;
I am here as well at Hera’s temple
waiting for a sacrifice I suppose
but I am balancing the altar, bloodstained
yet lacking a sense of wrath.
you are so endearingly daft
husband of mine
with your comments on perspective
hardly enough to disguise your lingering
over the breasts displayed in every Titian window.
you: my love, my roof, my clear sky,
you say you wish women were painted today
as they were then
so full and...full
the room rattling around my fiercest whisper
for the love of God honey focus on the architecture
Comments
I bet my hair right now is greasier than yours.