Undertow

NaPoWriMo Day 16, poem 17/30: Today's prompt was a poem inspired by a picture. I went flipping through the photography in recent issues of The Sun and happened upon this beauty by Rita Bernstein in the April 2012 issue. Once I saw it, there was no way I could choose any other picture. I borrowed the title from the name of the gallery on Bernstein's website.


Undertow

She lives
in the word "institution."
Spare metal bed,
deflated pillow, white
and black and gray, it could be
college or hospital, ward
or dormitory. She says
when you lie with your head at the foot
of your standard issue twin XL,
when you're too tired
for feeling,
it doesn't matter what you're in for.

There's so little of her
if I raised the lace from her torso
if she'd let me touch her
I could rest my fingers between
her ribs
but she sleeps with her hands
between her unsubstantial thighs
for protection
not pleasure.
Like a houseplant, she grows
with her face to the sun
and dreams of water.