Two Poems

Sunday Photographer

Anthurium? obvious,
and iris, lupine, calla
lillies: cheap thrills, dangerous
rarely. With this lens, voila,

peonies lost innocence,
as did I, caught up, kneeling
before flowers, reticence
gone, voyeuristic wingding.
I saw in a different
way through a lens, and roses
unfolded their insolent
petals, held obscene poses,

but now I watch cyclamen
strain upward. I peer into
camelias. What gentlemen
behave this badly, undo

the past's restraints? Delicious,
my bawdy vision delights
me. I savor lubricious
moments like these, rare insight.



The Deaf Psychotherapist

Nothing in his training
had prepared him for this.
At first he merely thought
his cases had become
more interesting.
The stodgy Mrs. Green
murmured she was late
because she had to wait
until her bail
had been posted.
Mr. Brown complained
of fear of ice,
something he'd never
suffered from before.
"If it's unbearable,
until you're cured
winter in Miami,"
said the therapist.
Mr. Brown, whose proudest moment
was winning a contest
for the child having the most
freckles, frowned.
Mrs. Green, who, past fifty,
sewed ruffles on all her clothes,
was agitated.
"Not a banana," she insisted.
"Not a banana at all."

He decided to listen
only to the tones
and the rhythms.
He listened
to his patients'
music.

He hoped someday to hear
one of Beethoven's late quartets;
this was the dream
of every psychotherapist.
Mrs. Green, however,
was locked
in an eternal foxtrot.
Mr. Brown was a series
of Strauss waltzes.
This was an agony,
yet he persisted.

One day, a balding popeyed gnome
waddled into the office.
When the little man
opened his mouth,
it was Schubert's "Trout."
"You don't need me,"
cried the psychotherapist.
"We should all be so healthy,"
he added--
although he could not help staring
at the Alpine hat and lederhosen
of this lucky fellow.
"I cannot hear you,"
mourned the gnome.
"I am here because
whenever anyone speaks to me,
I hear no words,
only music."

The psychotherapist had never
learned to read minds.
Now he thought momentarily
of learning to read lips,
learning--why not--
to read whole bodies.
He developed a revolutionary
new method of treatment.
He planned a series of articles
for the New England Journal of Medicine.

Whatever expressions
his patients wore,
whatever movements they made,
however slight,
these he himself adopted.
By assuming their expressions,
their positions,
he understood them
perfectly.
In turn they responded
with the next and the next
thought and movement.

He practiced his mime.
A slight exaggeration.
He and his patients moved
around the office
like unsynchronized shadows.
He began to wear whiteface,
to paint on a bright red mouth
and dark arched brows.
He wore a black leotard
and blue overalls
and a black and white striped
tee-shirt for his sessions.

Each day it took him longer
to put on his make up.
He became lonely in the office;
one after another
his patients stopped coming
without his ever having heard
even one
of Beethoven's late quartets
from any of them.

At last he recognized
the truth. "I have rid
the world of madness.
I must become a potter
or a surgeon."

He sat alone with his thoughts,
a mime without gesture.

You can email Miriam at mkotzin@worldnet.att.net