Sharon Mesmer

Sharon Mesmer is the author of Half Angel, Half Lunch (poems, Hard Press, 1998), The Empy Quarter (stories, Hanging Loose Press, 2000), and the forthcoming In Ordinary Time (stories, Hanging Loose Press) and Ma Vie a Yonago (Hachette Litteratures, France).

STUPID UNIVERSITY JOB

Your loveliest of sway-backs;
of mine I was once ashamed,
and my uni-brow and crooked teeth,
and red hair my mother never let me wash
all winter,
afraid I'd catch a draft.
She wouldn't let me bathe, either,
which made gym class a horror.
I thought I had it bad
until I met that handsome Scottish man
whose parents tried to make him spontaneously combust
by feeding him haggis laced with gunpowder
and making him sleep in the stove.
Instead of an ear, he had a shiny, snail-shaped ridge.
I guess we all have our tragic flaw.
Mine is like that of the naked man
who holds up a sign that says "I'm naked,"
and runs screaming through the park.
My handlers say I'm difficult,
but don't you believe it.
My soul still radiates a luminous intensity
despite this stupid university job.