My morning exercise
includes repetitively curling a pair
of 20-pound dumbbells.
I stand in my Jockey “Slim Guy”
underwear envisioning myself a tall,
mesomorphic, light-skinned black man.
My muscles don’t bulge
but gracefully arrange themselves
in fluid proportions.
This helps.

Today I curl before the bathroom mirror,
to confirm my long-held image.
Bad move.

Faltering, I quickly step away,
to become the svelte,
cat-like jungle man
who I
am.

(No. 70 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I suppose we all do this in one way or another.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)