Sunday Morning Poetry

I am many things in this life, one of which is a writer. Although I don't find myself writing much these days, I still think about putting pen to paper fingers to keyboard. You could say I've slacked off in the writing department, and I don't mean writing like writing this blog, I mean like the writing I used to do, what I studied in college: poetry. So when inspiration strikes me like a lightening bug aglow before my eyes, I find I need to drop everything else and write. And that's what I did this morning.

Last night, Big Red and I attended the 30th birthday of a friend. Five months ago she had her first baby, a gorgeous little girl. Perhaps you've seen her deliciously adorable face grace this blog? My friend began to tell a story of being at a pool, how she was wearing a bikini and how her niece questioned the marks on her belly. She responded saying the marks were her tiger stripes. That stuck. That coupled with what another friend said many, many years ago created the perfect storm and out came the following poem. It's rough and in its infant draft stage, but I'm just so damn excited to have finally written something again that I wanted to share.

This one is for Lyndsey and Raeann.

Scars

When the flaxen haired little girl pointed

at her bikini bare belly, and asked about the striae, she

did not hesitate to answer—these are my tiger stripes.

She spun a story that satiated the pool-side curiosity,

then submerged herself in the water, leaving the little girl

intoxicated with twinkling dreams of one day roaring.

Of course in the raw morning moments

in the privacy of her bathroom, she would pinch

and tug at loose folds of her belly, posturing

her naked self, trying to remember what her body was before.

And even though the shape of her figure did not

match the post-pregnancy bodies of celebrities on television,

she was not entirely uncomfortable with the tiger

stripes nine months left behind—those silky striations

like bunting across her belly. She was certain that the corpulent

camber of her hips could be amended, but the marks

would never leave—lines of flesh like the pink ribbons

she would someday tie into the fine fuzz of her daughter’s hair.

There was repose in knowing that when she died and her body lay

rigid on the slab, whomever examined her remains would be

certain she was a mother, they would revere what she created,

being ever so careful with this tenement—

so she says quietly to no one but the reflection            

in the mirror—these scars are those worth bearing.