THRONE OF GLORY

O changing table! Your terrycloth breast rises and dips like the gentle swell of the hills. Underneath, Pampers, stacked like stones in a falling-down wall beside a box filled with damp tufts of cloud. Above, the bright elephant hovering in the sky, its mirrored belly reflecting emptiness. Someday you will retire to the basement and mice will dart beneath your sheet. Will you remember feet beating a tattoo on your chest, fingers questing for the safety belt which dangles into your ribcage? Will you recall the scent of pink Johnson & Johnson's, this woman's hands, this baby's gleeful laughter? What will you dream?

This week's prompt at Big Tent Poetry invites us to step outside our poetic comfort zone and to write poems which differ from what we've been writing. After rereading my recent work, I decided to write a prose poem this week, and to address it to an inanimate object instead of to my son. It was fun to write; I haven't tried my hand at a prose poem in a long while.

The title is a reference to a line from the blessing for the body which traditional Jews recite upon going to the bathroom. I posted about that blessing in 2005. Sometimes I recite the asher yatzar blessing when I'm giving Drew his pre-bedtime lotion massage. It's easy to marvel at the wonders of the human form when I'm paying attention to how his miraculous little body continues to grow and change.

Here's a link to this week's Come One, Come All post so you can see what others wrote in response to the August 2 prompt.

[throne.mp3]