Once

I saw my father naked, once, I

opened the blue bathroom door

which he always locked — if it opened, it was empty —

and there, surrounded by the glistening turquoise

tile, sitting on the toilet, was my father,

all of him, and all of him

was skin. In an instant my gaze ran

in a single, swerving, unimpeded

swoop, up: toe, ankle,

knee, hip, rib, nape,

shoulder, elbow, wrist, knuckle,

my father. He looked so unprotected,

so seamless, and shy, like a girl on a toilet,

and even though I knew he was sitting

to shit, there was no shame in that

but even a human peace. He looked up,

I said Sorry, backed out, shut the door

but I’d seen him, my father a shorn lamb,

my father a cloud in the blue sky

of the blue bathroom, my eye had driven

up the hairpin mountain road of the

naked male, I had turned a corner

and found his flank ungarded — gentle

bulge of the hip-joint, border of the pelvic cradle.

—

From Blood, Tin, Straw by Sharon Olds, published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.