Corpus
 
 
 
 
 
Nudibranch, Indonesia, copyright 2005 Mary Pearson
 
 
Sixty-Five
Why would you want to strip off at our age?
Mingle all that sagging, crepey skin with another's greying flesh?
--Fidelma Cook, French Leave

 
Well, why would you not? If the lights are dim and the candles are lit,
surely this old skin will do, the two of us rubbing along slowly like freight
trains chugging up a grade. So your stomach’s not a ridge of washboard abs
or tablettes de chocolat as they say here; mine’s a puddle of warm crème brûlée.
Pears ripen slowly as they concentrate their juice. Brie slumps in the shell
of its rind. And both of them, and all of me, are absolutement délicieuse.

 


Copyright 2012, Barbara Crooker

Barbara Crooker lives and writes in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, and her poems have appeared in journals such as The Hollins Critic, The Beloit Poetry Journal, America, The Atlanta Review, and The Green Mountains Review. Her newest book is More (C&R Press, 2010).



<< Previous      Contents      Next   >