Another Recent Poem
My peculiar porcelain boy,
living your awkward love.
How unbearable to watch
you recoil from her touch.
Afraid of being exposed,
rendering intimate truths.
Her protests are open now,
against me, our odd ways.
Users of the brown cloth,
old bathroom modesties.
The flesh denied freedom,
our bodies golden temples.
Inhibition over exhibition,
a mother’s lasting regret.
Will your past stay present,
keeping you forever timid?
Forgive me my hapless son,
stained by the brown cloth.
© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "The Brown Cloth".
