BATHING BLUELY

First the toes, noting on the sides

of the big ones, calluses as in the ads

in old people's magazines --

you file them gently down knowing

they'll come back but decide to let

that worry go. Next, the shins, covered

in bruises – not the kind that heal

but deep nicks from various disasters,

and a virtual cosmos of scars from having

been way too loved by mosquitoes.

Time cannot undo such devotion.

You have to let it go.

Next, the knees, the left one knocked-,

needing an elective operation no one voted for.

Continuing upward, you notice,

like veins in strained eyes, varicose

cobwebs, which actually look like

the spiders themselves.

Their blueness makes you blanch.

Perhaps you crossed your legs too much,

should have sat down more while heavy

with child?   Should have been barren?

Whatever, there they are.

Dreaming of skirts and shorts

you'll never don, you let that go too.

Continuing upward with the rag,

you re-word an old tune:

“where has all the pubic hair gone?”

but worse, some that remains is white.

How could this be??? It's difficult but finally

you let it go. Next, the stomach,

stubbornly rounded from a late pregnancy

which for years you were so proud of

but now curse as a demon no amount of

exercise will exorcise. You let it go.

Then the chest, which ballooned out

following that pregnancy, and since

there is no quarrel there (!) you continue

on to the long long neck which, of course,

you cannot see except in a mirror,

overly-familiar with its many lines --

the rings of Shavin, you call them,

after your father, whom you've never

forgiven for being able to camoulflage his

beneath a beard. You think if you just

clean the creases well enough

they'll disappear, but it never works

so you just let it go.

And then the face, overfull of sins,

too many to explicate.

Your arms sport the same scars from

the same bugs and are heavily freckled

on the shoulders, like a somatic Milky Way.

You let it go. Now, not that familiar

with the backside of you, excepting

your bottom's girth, this pain in the ass

is intractable.  The complete resignation

here is comforting, and you easily let go.
 

You leave the bath, and the man

eyes you with a twinkle, exclaiming

how unbelievably beautiful you are,

a goddess, he says, gorgeous.

You walk right past him, without

acknowledging such absurdity.

You let that go too.

copyright Julie K. Shavin 2009