No 4: YELLOW BATHING SUIT SONNET

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

CASEY FRIEDMAN

A lovely yellow bathing suit, or at least it seemed.

I was never one for decorum, but I always felt naked.

Pool decks were judgement days, where heathens and

vultures would pick apart my skin with hungry eyes or

insidious appetites for scrutiny and shame. And yet I

never knew what it was like to let the sun kiss your body 

like the holy flesh of a golden apple in the Garden where

nobody ever told them they were unclothed or imperfect.

I learned early on to cover myself from light or enlightenment.

Fancy words for exposure, for letting your skin be privy to jokes 

and hollers and pokes, and tips for creasing wrinkles and rolls,

or hiding away what no one wants to see. Expect for the ones

whose eyes follow your little knobby knees wherever they go

when you’re only eight years old in a baggy yellow swimsuit.