About Face poem – Alice Fulton

Because life’s too short to blush,

I keep my blood tucked in.

I won’t be mortified

by what I drive or the flaccid

vivacity of my last dinner party.

I take my cue from statues posing only

in their shoulder pads of snow: all January

you can see them working on their granite tans.

That I woke at an ungainly hour,

stripped of the merchandise that clothed me,

distilled to pure suchness,

means not enough to anyone for me

to confess. I do not suffer

from the excess of taste

that spells embarrassment:

mothers who find their kids unseemly

in their condom earrings,

girls cringing to think

they could be frumpish as their mothers.

Though the late nonerotic Elvis

in his studded gut of jumpsuit

made everybody squeamish, I admit.

Rule one: the King must not elicit pity.

Was the audience afraid of being tainted

–this might rub off on me–

or were they–surrendering–

what a femme word–feeling

solicitous–glimpsing their fragility

in his reversible purples

and unwholesome goldish chains?

At least embarrassment is not an imitation.

It’s intimacy for beginners,

the orgasm no one cares to fake.

I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.

Copyright ©: 
Alice Fulton

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Poems in English 

• Three Songs Of Zahir U Din by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Thoughts Mahomed Akram by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Though In My Firmament Thou Wilt Not Shine by Adela Florence Nicolson
• This Month The Almonds Bloom At Kandahar by Adela Florence Nicolson
• There Is No Breeze To Cool The Heat Of Love by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Window Overlooking The Harbour by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Tom Toms by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Temple Dancing Girl by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Teak Forest by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Singer by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The River Of Pearls At Fez Translation by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Rice Was Under Water by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Rice Boat by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Regret Of The Ranee In The Hall Of Peacocks by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Rao Of Ilore by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Plains by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Net Of Memory by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Masters by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Lute Player Of Casa Blanca by Adela Florence Nicolson
• The Lament Of Yasmini The Dancing Girl by Adela Florence Nicolson

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