To a Corpulent Singer

I

Bulging maturity
Constructs an unfair version
Of curves not visible
To eyes upon the outside face.

II

If a soul is more
Slender than the motives of wind,
Flesh provides the necessary
Privacy, and in a rising voice
The soul proclaims its gratefulness.

III

Who has watched a bear
Pawing his idea of a breeze?
The audience in this falsely walled
Room is pouncing awkwardly
Upon the small part of a singer’s voice.
The actual sounds swing easily
To eyes and ears beyond the edge of earth.

IV

And if to this meandering
Of metaphysical remarks
I should add a face
Where tragedy experiments with lanterns
To aid a long, sharp nose and wondering lips,
And laughter is conscious of being
The excited, misunderstood child of a soul,
The singer would receive
Final details of her disguise.