Song of the Nude Marble Statue my Young Father Poses With by Carla Schwartz

Song of the Nude Marble Statue my Young Father Poses With

Don’t touch me,
you bore me.
I’m here for the hundreds—
crooked on my elbow,
to gaze at the willows,
my scant drape, thigh-clasped,
not hiding from weather,
here for all seasons
stone-cold,
marble.

You touch
the back side
of my elbow,
study the soft curves
of my muscles,
my back.

I won’t lean
into shadow,
won’t bow
in shame—
you can’t shame me
young man,
young bow-tied man.
I flip you
my scrolls
of curls.

What’s that in your pocket?
What’s that on your mind?

Your beautiful wife,
or my beautiful back?

Your young girls
or the curve
of my spine?

*

Carla Schwartz’s poems have appeared in The Practicing Poet and her collections Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. Learn more at https://carlapoet.com, or on all social media @cb99videos. Recent/upcoming curations: Great Weather for MEDIA, Contemporary Haibun Online, Drifting Sands, Modern Haiku, Paterson Literary Review, New-Verse News, New Verse Review, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Spank the Carp, The MacGuffin, Verse-Virtual Online, and Leon Literary Review. Carla Schwartz received the New England Poetry Club E.E. Cummings Prize.