The Virtual Occoquan is out and I'm in it!
11:28:14 AM     comment []

Once

I saw my father naked, once, I

opened the blue bathroom's door

which he always locked--if it opened, it was empty--

and there, surrounded by glistening turquoise

tile, sitting on the toilet, was my father,

all of him, and all of him

was skin. In an instant, my gaze ran

in a single, swerving, unimpeded

swoop, up: toe, ankle,

knee, hip, rib, nape,

shoulder, elbow, wrist, knuckle,

my father. He looked so unprotected,

so seamless, and shy, like a girl on a toilet,

and even though I knew he was sitting

to shit, there was no shame in that

but even a human peace. He looked up,

I said Sorry, backed out, shut the door

but I'd seen him, my father a shorn lamb,

my father a cloud in the blue sky

of the blue bathroom, my eye driven

up the hairpin mountain road of the

naked male, I had turned a corner

and found his flank unguarded--gentle

bulge of the hip joint, border of the pelvic cradle.

--Sharon Olds
11:00:42 AM     comment []