Eye On Life Magazine

Make every day a beautiful day.

Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine.  Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.

White to the Waist

 
That line of trees beside apartments 
marches neatly east and west, 
painted in place to prevent 
deviant happenings. 
The trees of childhood 
wore those same pale leggings 
against insect bites, I always believed. 
Those unravished barks 
were rough as we hugged them, 
foreheads bowed, eyes closed, 
the count to ten fraught with 
the next moment when we 
must run, scamper, become 
free of our last failure to escape. 
Touching base first seems 
to offer salvation, so I have 
my trees sprayed, cover the pond 
to protect the goldfish. Someone 
must still believe neat white makes pure. 
Tom Sawyer was tricky with whitewash, 
and I was once coated over in Mexico. 
They called me La Fantasma de Monterrey. 
I knew, though, no matter how pale 
I looked, I was still sun-burnished 
beneath and much compromised. 
Today, I think, we ask for stronger medicine. 
I take my dose and wait for something, 
or someone, to call me cured.

-- Carol Hamilton