Glorious
The problem with hotels, she’s found
is that you cannot escape the mirrors
the buffed marble polish of it all.
She can swerve in oversized robes
bath towels, sheets. Do the dance
of the seven veils, but still
is destined to catch the shape,
the pendulous gravity of her own body,
hanging in parts
like aged and marbled meat.
Unflattering, unfaltering daylight
is the constant nemesis
of the flesh that is her but not hers.
She’s been taught other names
to call it: burden,
greed,
to hide
under layers of ill-fitting
sighing sagging elastic and pull.
How to disguise her shape
with a well-placed alligator skin handbag.
When it escapes in hotel rooms
it’s as something warmly familiar
has stalked into strangeness
through the foxed edges of
the all seeing glass.
She then has the urge
to embrace it, hold herself close
like a glorious child.
Jennie E. Owen’s writing has been widely published online, in literary journals and anthologies. She teaches Creative Writing for The Open University and lives in Lancashire, UK with her husband and three children. She is currently working on her PhD under the guidance of Manchester Metropolitan University.