The Eyes of Men
May 18 2015


The slim young women
who guard the pool.

She patrols the deck

like a barefoot nymph,

a goddess

with the power to give, mouth-to-mouth

the kiss-of-life.

But seems too girlish, too slight

to be in charge,

let alone

tow a struggling body

to shallow water.

A flotation device

clutched to her chest,

she looks earnest, intent
yet never notices.
Oblivious
to her power of sex,
the eyes of men
upon her.

From her coquettish "have a good swim"
to the one-piece suit, on flawless skin

that hugs her body.
From the curve of her legs
to her tight pert bottom,
from sun-kissed arms
to bleached blonde hair.

A pony-tail, bouncing along

as she lightly walks,

unaffected, athletic

the girl-next-door.

Were there girls like this
when I was young?
Anyway, I would have been tongue-tied, invisible
even then.

But I am older
and think I know
how insecure she feels.
And how naive
that this dazzling pulchritude
the effortless bloom of youth
is all too brief.
That she will soon disappear,
then turn middle-aged, and wistful;
more self-critical
than even adolescence allows.

Why is beauty
so evanescent, so unaware?
I want her to revel
in this hot-house moment,
the apotheosis
of coltish youth.
I wasted mine
and would hardly begrudge her
some swagger, and strut.
The cruel flirtation
of beautiful girls.
The vanity
youth deserves,
no matter how unbecoming.

The slavish attention of boys
who will flock to her.
And the eyes of men,
who have learned to repress
their wistful longing.

I rarely reveal much in my poetry. I prefer amused detachment, and inhabiting others' lives. So I was extremely uncomfortable writing this one, let alone posting it: about as confessional as I'll ever get.

But the girl here is innocent, and I am repressed. So despite the clearly unintentional "coquettishness", the poem becomes less about her sexual power and my inappropriate thoughts, and more about the fleeting nature of youth. And after all, I end up on her side -- in effect saying "you go, girl" -- instead of resenting her power. Enough said. ...Except to say that all men look, no matter how old or how attached: it's not sordid, furtive, or dirty; it's what men do. And that beautiful young women are better off knowing that they have been, and will always be, the objects of male desire, expressed or not.

I think the best part of the poem is the very last word. Longing really nails it. "Desire" might have worked; but not as well. Longing seems to dredge deeper; and it seems more complicated than mere lust. Wistful, too, works well: the call-back to the older version of her invokes the inexorable passage of time; and even more important, our common humanity.

I may have gone a bit overboard in this poem with "big" words -- words that may not be immediately accessible to the average reader. I usually avoid this, because difficult words stop a reader, interrupt the flow, require too much processing. So I apologize if evanescent, pulchritude, and apotheosis seem indulgent. I chose them because either the sound and rhythm, or the nuance of meaning, made them indispensable. I always talk about not trusting the reader enough. So in this case, perhaps I'm trusting that if the reader stuck with me that far, she'll sail on through, surrendering to the richness of language and letting the context do all the work.