'Our Asses are Our Own' by David Anthony Sam

(After Rimbaud's “Nos fesses ne sont pas les leurs”)

I often see the unbuttoned, coming apart

at the flesh, lurking beside the potted plants,

bathing in the fake fountains of malls

where childhood remains an unelectronic Eden.

I see their white cheeks bulging from slacks

too small for the raptures that remain

from too many meals of hamburgers and sighs.

Their flab flirts with me, a satin effulgence.

How like voluptuous angels bulging flesh

in Rubens or some Renaissance master.

The vertical smiles keep growing as I watch.

I should be as plump and joyful in my nakedness.

My forehead should be turned to appetites.

Then I would be free of whispers of frailty.

Copyright. David Anthony Sam.

David Anthony Sam lives in Virginia with his wife and life partner, Linda. His poetry has appeared in over 90 journals and his poem, “First and Last,” won the 2018 Rebecca Lard Award. Six of his collections are in print including Final Inventory (Prolific Press 2018), Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson, 2016 Grand Prize winner of the GFT Press Chapbook Contest, and Dark Fathers (Kelsay Books 2019). He teaches creative writing at Germanna Community College, from where he retired as President in 2017 and serves as the Regional VP on the Board of the Virginia Poetry Society.