Swimming on Coffee Tables
Édith Piaf’s quivering vibrato on “amour”
tickles the back edge of my hearing tonight
as I watch my five-and-a-half-year-old friend
on her belly, atop our coffee table
swimming in her colorful stretchy pants—
a pink-legged turtle doing the breaststroke.
Her long blonde hair shines confidently
in the soft glow of our Christmas tree,
but her arcing arms and thrusting legs
belie the dullness, unusual in her bright blue eyes.
More than a little tired and just a little hyper,
the dark, shiny table is just the thing
after a daylong outing and an over-long movie
when you haven’t yet learned to soothe yourself.
This baby turtle’s eyes—drab and lusterless—
reflect something inside dimmed and fearful,
the battery fluid of her childness leaking out.
Let’s hope some sleep and “amour” find you tonight,
protect and recharge you from your father’s miserable
mesh bag of neediness and wretched insecurity,
a whirlpool sucking your turtle’s delight
down the drain of a parent who doesn’t like girls.
David J. Schast
David J. Schast is a Philadelphia-area former oboist whose poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Crown Heights Community News, HOOT Review, The Oxford Review of Books, Poetry Scotland, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, The F-Word, and Voicemail Poems.
