In cleaning out my boxes of * junk* I’ve been hauling around for years, I ran across this poem I wrote many moons ago while taking a creative writing class through the University of Alabama. The writing Prof. loved it and praised the sexual imagery *gasp* and gave me an “A +” so I was pretty happy, especially since the sexual imagery was really just some sort of Freudian slipperoo accident! Roll Tide!
Half Baked Naked Woman
I sit by the pool and watch
a bug float round and round,
a shadowy blob on the bottom
of the pool, a miniature monster
at war with itself.
.
The neighbor’s black Lab barks and barks
at squirrels and birds and me
in my pink and yellow bikini as
I lather my too brown skin
with coconut oil.
.
A bicycle riding young boy
turns his red head to stare,
nose wrinkling as if he’s never seen
a half baked naked woman
slipping and sliding.
.
He probably hasn’t since mothers
aren’t women, they’re mothers.
But then, I realize he’s just
staring at the pool and probably
wishing I’d go away.
.
He’s probably thinking he’d like to
take a quick dip in the beckoning blue
water, if only that old lady would
disappear he’d climb the chain link
fence and hop in.
.
I smile and wave, and the boy nods
and not so discreetly rolls his blue eyes
and rides off without a backwards
glance. His legs pump up and down,
pump up and down.
.
The snotty nosed brat is gone and
the neighbor’s dog sniffs the air and
barks and barks and rolls over in the
dirt splashing and playing and snapping
at black fleas.
.
The bug sinks to the bottom of the pool,
dead. I smile at the dog and smile at
the bug, then hop in to fetch it and
carry it to the goofy black lab as
a friendly treat.
–Cynthia M. Johnson
