You are a busy man, but you do the right things—
eat oats every morning, Cheerios in summer,
oatmeal on cooler days. You make your own breakfast,
keep your costume starched and pressed—white shirt,
dark suit, handkerchief in chest pocket. You like
hot tea and the tether of a long, red tie. You love
a stable life. But on this particular morning, the spoon
empties into an unfamiliar hole in your face, as if
your mouth is an opening into a parallel universe.
Your nose protrudes like a large, broad muzzle. You see it.
Like a scab, you can’t not touch it. Your ears are enormous.
Your whole head feels different and your shoes don’t fit.
It hurts to stand upright, but you can still carry a crate
of oranges. Obstinance is a virtue sitting in your chair.
It takes a lifetime to look in the mirror and see the ass.
used to teach, cook, deliver mail, test software, and measure the movement of stars in the universe. Her poems can be found in Comstock Review, Fourth River, Iron Horse Literary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Passager, Pleiades, Rattle, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Stone Canoe, and other fine journals. She has earned degrees from Keuka College, The University of Virginia, and The University at Albany, and is a Lifetime Member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Susan lives and writes in Upstate New York, where degenerative myopia has blinded her but not stopped her.
