Years ago, Lorna Dee Cervantes posted the following poem in my comment stream. I have a printed copy taped to my office wall, for I think it is a beautiful poem, no matter whose name is in the title.


Poem For Bill; Or, How To Be Comfortable In Your Own Skin

Peel it off. Take a breath.
Breathe in a world — united
and immaculently expanded.
Hop on a hophead universe.
Be there in a whirl. To dance
is only to sing, a shower
of daisies plucking you up from
the grave. Be there in the flowers,
the grave reasons nature gives
flight, the inevitable crawl to-
ward the knowledge of the soul —
that peanut, gallery of deception
and redemption — in a blink. Take off
the sail. Trust the drift. The lull,
the dull sheet of rink the sea
becomes before the gale, la bonanza
in a horizon — the crossing. Be there
instantly. In an instant, rich
for thhe sight, the bling bling
of autumn over the ear, the fine
brush of snow over the kiss. Fish
coming easy to the net and out.
Hold it in, but only to the rush
of release. And see. See? Sea
in the dark: comfortable
in its own skin.

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