Something I Don’t Usually Look Forward To
Doing exercises in the shower.
The shower part alone. I can’t not think about waterfalls and waterboarding.
But also the exercises. They smack too much of what they call stress positions
and of how many there are. Probably more than non-stress positions.
I keep thinking of new ones. And I don’t want to.
Each exercise, altered by a few inches, a few more repetitions, a 180 degree turn.
Each body part, too many possibilities.
When I’ve finished my exercises and am climbing out of the shower I’m happy to forget
happy to do ordinary things with my limbs and joints
things further away from what I try not to think about
happy to keep a safe distance from water
to stay within spacial and temporal limits
happy to be making a mere quarter-turn.
© Copyright 2016 Marion Deutsche Cohen
Marion Deutsche Cohen’s latest poetry books are Lights I Have Loved (Red Dashboard Press, NJ) and What I Wore Today, about the fun and Angst of thrift-store fashion (dancing girl press, IL). Her books total 27, including Crossing the Equal Sign, about the experience of mathematics (Plain View Press, TX) and two memoirs about spousal chronic illness. She teaches math and writing at Arcadia University, where she has developed the course Mathematics in Literature. The above poem of one of several about having to live in a world that includes atrocities. She will be voting for Bernie Sanders in Pennsylvania’s upcoming primary.
