The Body

My mother would have celebrated her birthday this coming week, if she were still alive. Always a very proper person, she would have been dismayed with the following poem. But it reveals that human side to her found in us all. Here's to you, Mom.



The Body


Your puffy lost ankles carry your failing
self through the moonless morass.
The sound of midnight pee

against porcelain, an unfettered belch,
a belly-deep sigh. Your sense of propriety
shed like a tiresome robe at the end

of the bed. You would be embarrassed
if you knew I heard, your overnight guest
already forgotten in the balm of sleep.

But even ninety-year old ladies have bodies
that revel when free from polite restraints.
I roll over, holding my pillow close.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor