Gravitass

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Inspired by the photograph Nude Sharkfin Swimmers (1973) in Geist 88, in an article about Glenn Lewis (a.k.a. Flakey Rose Hip).

I would love to have a man’s ass, which is
less bottom than top, a firm bulb on sprung stems,
like garlic, but only a couple of cloves.
Men have the best butts, I think, studying
a photo of nude men (in a literary magazine, ahem),
as my soft bottom yields beneath me where I lie
in bed, anxious again, realizing that these days
I’m afraid of the moon. And once I was in love
with the moon, knew it personally, it was mine
and kept being mine, over and over, punctuating
the sky whether I was drunk or reading a poem
so brilliant I’d have to look up from the page
as out a window.
I suppose I discovered at some murky point
that everyone loved the moon, everyone
was embroiled in the same affair. Wisdom
is frequently humiliating. But I’ve learned to translate
humiliation into maturity, which assures me now
that everyone fears the moon! I reach
for my magazine again, adjust my glasses,
which are cheap, Made in China, assembled
on the unseen side of the world, probably worse
for my eyes than good, but does it matter?
I imagine going blind and the picture sucks:
no, I’d rather not go down that hole that will never
be dug. Once an employer said, as I squinted
over the contract, when you’re regularized you’ll get
great eyeglasses. That was years ago and I remain
term faculty. The term term sticks in my throat,
no longer a glowing, ripening season but a chip
of something stony. Terminal, termite, termagant.
If my bottom weren’t so soft, maybe things
would be different. I would have upwardness, lift,
less gravitass.
A sigh sounds through the house, small bellows
wheezing at a fire. It seeps from one of my children
asleep in his or her bed. Oh, wealth. My wide, ample stores
of love kindle for my offspring, who fill my days with
the unknown labours of the single mother, and all
the joys of motherhood. I remove my bad glasses,
extinguish the lamp, put my head to my softish pillow
and bravely glance at the moon, that constant bulb–
perhaps I could win back its hard love, after all.