Reading Ovid at the Plastic Surgeon’s
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
to see what it was I was.
No one else with a book, the slick
weeklies gossip amongst
themselves on the side
tables as the ticker rolls the Dow
Jones down down down under
a profile of the marathon
bombers (the older, a boxer). Jove
argues for the removal of a race
of peoples that do not please
him: What is past
remedy calls for the surgeon’s
knife. They will take a hunk of my
cheek (cancer) & though I can’t
see during the procedure, I imagine
the site as an apricot, bitten.
This is a survival mechanism —
romanticism. David says,
If you’re out
in public & you don’t want anyone
to talk to you, bring a book
of poetry. Even as I enter the confidence
of the room, I avoid my reflection
in the window, for there, most
of all, I see myself as only I can,
as only the eye will have me —
as light, as light alone.
Source: Poetry (December 2013)