Look At Him

The Blush … WHB – 2000 (With acknowledgement to Mervyn Peake’s ‘Titus’ Alone’) 

Look at him
He’s blushing
My mother said
To those starchy
Grown up guests
All seated
At the formal
Wedding breakfast table

Perhaps
Mistakenly Imagining
The unwanted attention
Would be cure
For my burgeoning habit

While I
So far unnoticed
Curled up
Claiming invisibility
Reddened even more
Shrank into my chair
Felt the burning heat of my face
Burn down through me
To a deep hole
In the ground beneath

Thus are our
Futures set on course
Another denigration
To be overcome
Another mental scar
To afflict my dreams
Another blandishment
foregone
Another battle to
Accompany me into manhood

Quote … e.e.cummings