On the South Bank. (3)

Sketchbook, Southbank, 2013 © Thomas Hogan

Lawrence Schimel, Skating Beauty

Like the uninvited
thirteenth fairy at the christening,
I am standing just outside
the place where they’re skating

and I want to curse them
for my not being a part
of such easy youthful
masculine fellowship.

Forget the prick of a finger
on a spinning wheel’s needle,
let them crush their hands
beneath the spinning wheels

of their skateboards!
But I want more than just
belonging; it is you I crave:
a beauty that could exist

only in fairy tale,
where magic or alchemy
transforms a catalogue of parts–
eyes, lips, lithe torso that twists

just so at the waist–into something
wondrous and unique, delicate and fierce,
hovering on that threshold
between boyhood and manhood.

Almost shy when on the ground,
unaware of your own desirability,
your board, tucked under your arm
like a shield, blocks the view of your

naked torso as you constantly shift
position, less nervousness than
restless excess of energy.
Then you mount your board.

Everything changes: you are
a modern-day centaur, board and boy
a single being whose grace
and almost preternatural calm

draws the attention of every eye.
Suddenly you launch into the air
legs bent at the knees. You soar,
your board flying up beneath you

and time stops

…………………………..for a hundred years

with you suspended in this moment

and only a kiss from me
could make it start again.

© Lawrence Schimel.  

Lawrence Schimel was born in New York and lives in Madrid where he is a Spanish-English translator. His most recent poetry collection is DELETED NAMES (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2013).