Working on a Tan

It takes work, he told me,

And you could see it did.

A tan so deep I thought at first,

Standing behind him, that his genes

Must have assisted. But no, as we shifted

Positions in the elevator, it was clear

He'd done it all himself. Incredible.

A compliment was called for, which

He accepted, like a diva, as his due.

And I wondered: Could I, too?

Now I'm equipped with a back yard,

Hammock, a stream with large flat

Boulders designed for basking-

All the right paraphernalia

For tanning. But I hide

Indoors with my typewriter,

Writing. The problem is

Without a lawn to mow, a patch

To sow and hoe, I am too much

A putterer to stay put.

To which the obvious solution

Has been to plant my desk out here

In the way of the sun and tan

As I finish the poem I've begun,

Its stanzas interleaved with pages

Of the ongoing novel. (I never could

Figure how anyone can justify poetry

As a full-time job. How do they get through

The day at MacDowell-filling out

Applications for the next free lunch?)

"Do I smell sour grapes?" jeers

My imaginary friend at the colony

(Whose every summer has been subsidized

For lo these many years). Her nose

Is accurate, and in this matter of a tan,

As well, it may be I am moved mainly

By envy of those whose copper tones

Betoken subsidies that need not be

Applied for-the social lions,

The skiers, the climbers, and wealth's other scions.

Who have, for all their patrimonial pelf,

Worked at their tans, while I myself

In mid-July am barely roseate.

Indeed, it is not, or it ought not be,

Their cash I covet but the care

They take to keep their carcasses

In good repair, their tans epiphenomenal

To the larger task of trimming

Sails and waists until fair Cythera,

And their abdominals, heave into view.

It can't be easy for that happy few

To leave off squeezing the wineskins

Of effortless pleasure and step into

The shoes of cowboys, farmhands,

Working stiffs. Once it was smart

To be palefaced and overfed. Now

Only hicks and mafiosi are complacently obese,

And so the bourgeoisie must work at seeming

As leisured as the class that can

Always find time for tennis and a tan.

It helps that Hollywood eroticizes

The clothing and complexions of the poor.

Without the lure of those confections

Who'd bother with cabanas at the shore?

Who'd buy the balms for quicker basting?

And what would these mosquitoes feed on,

If time and blood were not for wasting?

No doubt the race would keep on breeding,

If fashions in flesh-tones were paler,

But I'd still burn to seem a sailor.

For say what you will, a suntan speaks

Of a purpose held steady for weeks and weeks.

Even lacking the toute ensemble

Of a body beautiful, at least being brown

Connotes an allegiance to something primal.

When skin and sun are one on one

And the sweat that tickled starts to stream

And consciousness becomes ice cream

That melts into dreams in your hand,

Then you're in sight of the land promised the tanned.

Then the ultraviolet in the air

Reminds your melanin that you are there-

In Arcady beyond the reach

Of custom or of clothes, a peach

That's slowly burning into scarlet,

A fool, a simpleton, a common varlet

Asleep beside a golden veldt

Of Breughel wheat, feeling what he felt

Who first lifted his face to the sun

And said, Turn me over, this side's done.