Holy Moly
My friend Michael and I love to issue poetry challenges to each other. We once did one on parts of the body: Knees, etc. So, when I noticed his bandaged big toe and asked if it was broken and he replied that he’d had a mole removed from it, I decided it was time for another challenge. Below is his poem and then my reply:
ODE TO A MOLE (recently removed from my toe)
Old friend, we trod the bumpy road
of ups and downs together, you and me –
I send you home with this sad ode
to join your scabby family.
You were an ugly, lumpy one
but always benign in your own way –
you did no harm to anyone,
now you’re cut off and thrown away.
Although your features did not please,
I give you this, my final thought
for one who sometimes smelt like cheese
“They also serve who only stand and wart!”
Michael Warren
This poem was written in answer to Michael’s. May he forgive me for using his personae in writing it.
Holy Moly
Oh mole that graced my biggest toe,
you had a thankless row to hoe.
I did not know your purpose there–
devoid of title and of hair.
Had I but known why you were given,
had you only come and shriven,
I might have given absolution,
reacted with less resolution
to sever our relationship
–to halt the surgeon’s unkind snip.
We have so little knowledge of
digits that fill our socks or glove.
We do not know of strange attractions
that might have influenced your actions.
Oh mole that lived beneath my knee,
my leg, my ankle and most of me––
that chose to dwell far far below,
clinging to my aging toe.
What fierce attraction brought you there
to form this most unlikely pair?
Came you from Nile or from Ganges
to wed largest of my phalanges?
How did you choose from all that were
to settle there on him or her?
(I am embarrassed here to note,
I only know my toes by rote:
big toe, second toe, middle toe, stinky,
little toe, simply known as pinky.
I do not know their names or gender,
only that they’re long and slender.)
True, I clip their nails with care––
remove the occasional long-grown hair––
but I never address my bod
lest others label me as odd.
So you must know this apology
is no means a doxology.
I do no honor to thy name.
I do not wish to spread your fame.
In short, that act would be absurd.
I simply want to say a word
explaining to you that although
your habitation of my toe
was ended by easy decision,
I felt no scorn and no derision.
I hope this ode might serve to leaven
your anger as you speed towards heaven.
I really would not like to think
that once arrived, you’d raise a stink
to blacklist my immortal soul
by making a mountain out of a mole.
–Judy Dykstra-Brown
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 