untitled, by Roy Geiger

Bathsheba at her Bath, by Rembrandt von Rijn (Netherlands) 1654

untitled

bathsheba is beautiful in any mood     she gets a letter and takes off her clothes to read it isn’t that what everybody does    no no the letter comes while she’s at her bath not like she’s going to put her clothes back on to read a letter especially when all of us need to see her as david did and presumably her soon-to-be-if-not-already-slaughtered husband so we can understand  why david acted as he did because any man who was king would do the same wouldn’t he   why is the bath the only part of her story we hear about it’s in her name for god’s sakes she must have done other things      she reads the letter and knows everything sad regret we can’t even consider the word choice      is the letter the invitation explanation proposal or command after the end of the inconvenient husband      who disobeys refuses a king    foreseeing all resigned to fate 
 
her beauty is her only power whether she uses it or not she is the king’s subject      as a boy I asked the child’s question why do we let anybody even a king get away with murder      still looking for answers to that one
 
I already knew the power of beauty the best-looking girl in our class had it in spades the taste-maker even the teacher did not want to upset her a tall young man just married with a kid drove a metallic green comet with baby moon hubcaps made her his favourite      her life was outside my experience her dad drove the only thunderbird in town her aunt lived with the family she played piano two or three grades ahead of the rest of us      she played beautifully though she wanted no attention for that as if in her smashing burgundy outfit she felt a little apologetic as if it weren’t quite real      I remember riding my bike past her open window hearing her practise someone later to be a music teacher stopped there listening infatuated with the music or his idea of her     she went out with the drummer of the coolest band in the county whispering said he’d drop her if she wouldn’t sleep with him later when they split she went into nursing failed out that teacher called her up one night drunk and divorced and told her he’d always loved her and could he see her she was working by then in a nursing home      I always liked her I think she needed social reassurance more than she’d let on     we had that in common along with a long search for a better definition of beauty

Roy Geiger

A former college English teacher, Roy Geiger lives in London, Ontario, and spends a lot of time on Manitoulin Island. He has volunteered on the board of several long-standing reading series, including Antler River Poetry. His poems and short fiction have been anthologized and published in Grain, The Antigonish Review, the temz review, and The Ekphrastic Review.