Close Menu
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
NEWSLETTER
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home » Kathleen Aguero – Body Image

Kathleen Aguero – Body Image

0
By Mom Egg Review on March 14, 2018 Poetry

Kathleen Aguero

SELF-PORTRAIT AS A GERANIUM

Here’s all I’ve got:
one showy cluster of red blossoms,
fancy hat on a scrawny neck
rising above bare stems and gently ruffled leaves
with their dark inner border, peach fuzz. Leggy, untrimmed,
I’m Americana Red in a green plastic pot,
a scatter of brown blooms
dusts the soil beneath me.

I know how I must look
straining toward the window
close enough to kiss it,
better yet tap out, break through.
Look at me. Let me out.
Look at me. Let me out.
Petals weighing nothing.

SELF-PORTRAIT AS AN EMPTY BOAT

Water licking my ankles
Salt’s slow finger down my back

Sanded by the wave’s rough tongue.
Then a long ride down a slow swell
a short slide down a whale’s fin
my spine a keel, a skate’s egg case––
that’s what I wanted when I entered the water

The current pulled but I rose
seasoned, warped,
hold-slosh, smell of low tide

SELF-PORTRAIT AS A SUNRISE

Here I am
can-can girl high-kicking
night out of the sky. Coral skirts,
hot pink feather boa, arms draped
across that electric navy horizon.
Dazzle dance, quick flirt, fade, and gather
my skirts into that spiked circle
children paint in the corner
of their pictures. That thing you think
you know.


Kathleen Aguero’s most recent book of poetry is After That. She teaches in the Solstice low-residency M.F.A. in creative writing program at Pine Manor College and in Changing Lives through Literature. She also conducts creative writing for caregivers workshops both privately and in community settings.

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleMichelle Reale – Body Image
Next Article Virginia Chase Sutton – Body Image

Comments are closed.

August 29, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – September 2025

August 25, 2025

Abbreviate by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

August 15, 2025

Laughing in Yiddish by Jamie Wendt

August 15, 2025

Body: My Life In Parts by Nina B. Lichtenstein

August 15, 2025

An Interview with Jocelyn Jane Cox, Author of Motion Dazzle

August 12, 2025

MER Bookshelf – August 2025

August 1, 2025

Mothersalt by Mia Ayumi Malhotra

August 1, 2025

Girlfriend by Barbara Henning

August 1, 2025

It’s No Fun Anymore by Brittany Micka-Foos

August 1, 2025

Monster Galaxy by Cindy Veach

Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact
MER - Mom Egg Review
PO Box 9037, Bardonia, NY 10954
Contact [email protected]

Copyright © 2025 MER and Mom Egg Review

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.