Corpus
 
 
In the Pink

 
In a lavender fog
at Glade Spring Spa
I was halfway through
a $2 a minute massage
when an unknown
beneath my shoulders
released and I started
to sob in the face cradle.

It was money
and being 50
and finally having
a job again: all the shame
I had swallowed selling
myself back from the red.
The masseuse said she
sensed something moving.           

I sat in the recovery room,
chamomile tea steeping,
flush in a fluffy robe,
bereft in winter sun.
Hot pools beckoned,
the sauna, the steam:
treatments to forget
my back in the game.

 




 
 
 
 
 
Nudibranch, Indonesia, copyright 2005 Mary Pearson


Copyright 2012,  Ted Lord

Ted Lord has been integral to the growth of The Giving Practice, the consulting arm of Philanthropy Northwest, since its founding. He has served as the Executive Director of Humanities Washington, and the Pride Foundation. His work appears in more than forty literary magazines, including Nimrod, South Carolina Review, North American Review, Indiana Review, and River Styx.



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