Overtaking a jogger, by bike, on Martha’s Vineyard
Check out those butcher-ready calves, austerely sculpted and
sensibly tanned, the muscles marbled like persistence marinating
in privilege: exercise now a compulsory regimen sponsored by
designer shoes and collared shirts. Sun-blanched body dripping
sweat like Brahmin alms on parched, old-country pavement—
each drop a blue-blooded baptism, softly received as benediction.
Inside his rental mansion another passionless play plays out:
Progeny repudiating farm-fresh plums in favor of low-fat
potato chips, implored by their svelte, devitalized mother
to explore the outdoors. This gentrified exchange lost, at last,
in the shuffle of i-Everything; these essential ghost machines
ascendant, supplanting timeless fairy tales, rendered quotidian.
________________
Sean Murphy