Member Poem

Put on my cotton underwear, but it was more like I was at the beach half-conscious of my body, half-conscious of the blue and splattering ocean... and my jeans came next, they were pungent with spring, and the many times I had walked down Washington Avenue, close to the curb but closer to my dreams—in this salt-dusted town where the pedestrians rule, and they lead with a New England swagger—it’s closer to a strut than a sway, but with all the elements of an object moving even if its legs weren’t actually in stride… my socks came next… got them at EMS, and boy are they warm and comfortable!  Like a dip in a pool with both stuffs of my stretching feet… as I choose my favorite t-shirt, I remember that it’s like a slinking, permeable glove, to my chest and shoulders, to my heart that is picking up its rhythm… I am awake!  and I reach for a collared, long-sleeve shirt—it’s large enough for me to take what I need that day and give me full control of my swimming arms—they poke through each cuff… and my sweater is a wool one for the coarse Nor’easters, like the one now pulverizing the clapboards, making them rusty, and dry, and gray… my shoes are probably my favorite, how they soothe and hug my feet, with every bow I tie at their knotted ends… how I pace to and from the mirror, checking if my hair—which is basically non-existent—is straight enough to be viable (for the people that are basically non-existent… but ooze from under the door like a life) … and how quickly it all comes off again!  on that whim, of a whirl, of what’s right…

Published in Southword Poetry Journal 2018