Me, I find the New Age stuff hard to get to grips with...
Doing Without Dolphins
Persuaded here against my better judgement,
feeling the oil-and-crystal ambience,
lying alert and still.
“I swim with dolphins” says the massage lady,
“it is a mystical experience”.
Prone on the table, through a face-shaped hole
watching my own fists clenching into knots,
thinking – what if my hands could see my face?
All jowls and eyebags, slowly dripping down
to form a nightmare physiognomy –
a winner in a gurning competition …
I try to share this with the massage lady:
“Do you know gurning?” “No”, she says and then
returns deftly to the subject of dolphins.
“They are so good, such spiritual beings;
“one knows they know the secrets of the soul
“and how to heal it…”
Her little stroking hands; my tired flesh
shuddering under their ministrations,
my head fighting to bring disparate worlds
to an accommodation.
Spirituality is not my thing
but stretched out at the mercy of a stranger
I did experience a small epiphany.
Some put their faith in dolphins; some cannot.
Somebody who fine-tunes her view of life
by mugging at it through a toilet seat
does not escape responsibility.
I’ll seek alternative alternatives,
working on ways of mending what is broken
which do not call for the participation
of dolphins.
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