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 

• Alicante Lullaby by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Aerialist by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Study in Hands by Théophile Gautier by Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier
• Smoke by Théophile Gautier by Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier
• Last Wish by Théophile Gautier by Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier
• Work and Play by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Wind by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Tractor by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Thrushes by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Thistles by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• The Warm and the Cold by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• The Owl by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• The Minotaur by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• The Child Is Father To The Man by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Spring & Fall: To A Young Child by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• September by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Pied Beauty by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes
• Old Age Gets Up by Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes

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Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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