Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Morning After

By all rights, this poem belong over on Juxtaposition with the rest of the poetry and the experimental prose, but, because of the content and subject matter, I'm posting it here, instead.

This poem came into being after we read aubades, or "dawn songs," in my Reading and Writing Poetry class. An aubade is written by a lover regretting the coming day, and the separation it will bring from their beloved.

I think we all know how I feel about overly romantic crap.

One aubade, however, I liked because it was written by a man about lying in bed while his girlfriend takes a shower, and he thinks about her body, and sleeping in a little more, equally. Maybe it was the comfort of the poem-- the sense that you got that they'd been together long enough that she always gets up first to take her shower, and that he feels no stress in lounging around for a few more minutes-- that I liked, in a sincere contrast to the feeling that I'm used to most mornings upon waking up not in my own bed. So, to counter all these idealistic people in their comfortable relationships and long-term commitments, I wrote this:

"Your underwear
Are always the first thing to go missing,
Hiding under the bed,
Or tossed into some far corner.

He usually will get up first,
To make coffee, or go to the bathroom,
That is, if you aren't ashamed enough
To have snuck out during the early dawn light
First.

You will have roughly 15 minutes
To regain some semblance of the well-pressed self-control
You had the night before,
Sans brush, and sans mirror.

His roommates will be moving noisily around,
With no clue or no care
That you might still be there.
They talk about eggs as you try to find all your rings,
Loose, like how you're feeling about your morals.

You hold your forehead,
Sneaking glances at him in Ray Bans and a Sox hat,
From in between your fingers
As he drives you home.
You wonder if he'll call again."

XOXO

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