Monday, December 12, 2011

Sharon Olds, “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party”

sharingpoetry:

When I take my girl to the swimming party
I set her down among the boys. They tower and
bristle, she stands there smooth and sleek,
her math scores unfolding in the air around her.
They will strip to their suits, her body hard and
indivisible as a prime number,
they’ll plunge in the deep end, she’ll subtract
her height from ten feet, divide it into
hundreds of gallons of water, the numbers
bouncing in her mind like molecules of chlorine
in the bright blue pool. When they climb out,
her ponytail will hang its pencil lead
down her back, her narrow silk suit
with hamburgers and french fries printed on it
will glisten in the brilliant air, and they will
see her sweet face, solemn and
sealed, a factor of one, and she will
see their eyes, two each,
their legs, two each, and the curves of their sexes,
one each, and in her head she’ll be doing her
sparkle and fall to the power of a thousand from her body.

(submitted by singingwiththunder) 
Posted at 12:35 AM 74 notes Reblogged from sharingpoetry Tags: Sharon Olds poetry lit The One Girl at the Boys' Party

Notes

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  12. simplycompassionatelivingy reblogged this from sharingpoetry and added:
    This is truly excellent.
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  17. ghostorballoon reblogged this from sonofapritch and added:
    This is, of course, a pretty bad poem, but I think you’re being too broad in your definition of “fetishization of...
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