Poetry 'Shaming'

 

Shaming 

Yer wee pony is oer fat, he writes on Facebook,
I’m tagged for emphasis, my pony singled out.
This under a smiling photo – smirry Mull day at Rossal 
in the stone sheep fank where cows go to give birth.

In the foreground a bath rusts to its deeper self.

The nerve isn’t a fat nerve, it’s a rib-sharp family nerve;
other ‘hes’ being quick to wipe the smile off my face,
like the time I was offered that job 
What did you do, show them your tits?

    Today on the radio a three-year-old says 
    Beautiful means … most self

I turn invisible taps on a bath  
resting under high stone walls,
strip off, steep long in peat and iron water
while pony grazes, storing up on September.

I soak
'til my smiles calve.