What use is my sense of humor?
I
grin
at Stanley, now sunk in
his
sixties,
once a Harvard all-American fullback,
(If
such were possible!)
still hoarding the build of a boy in his twenties,
as he soaks, a ramrod
with the muscle of a seal,
in his long tub,
vaguely urinous from the Victorian plumbing.
A kingly granite profile in a crimson golf-cap,
worn all day, all night.
He thinks only of his figure,
of slimming on sherbet and ginger ale–
more cut off from words than a seal.
This is the way day breaks in Bowditch Hall at McLean's;
the hooded night lights bring out "Bobbie,"
Porcellian '29,
a replica of Louis XVI
without the wig-
redolent .and roly-poly as a sperm whale,
as he swashbuckles about in his birthday suit
and horses at chairs.
These victorious figures of bravado ossified young.
In between the limits of day,
hours and hours go by under the crew haircuts
and slightly too non-sensical bachelor twinkle
of the Roman Catholic attendants.
(There are no Mayflower
screwballs in the Catholic Church.)
Mter a hearty New England breakfast,
I weigh two hundred pounds
this morning. Cock of the walk,
I preen in my turtle-necked French sailor's jersey
before the metal shaving mirrors,
and see the shaky future grow familiar
