Izabel Sonia Ganz

Massage
(for Cora)

In a small room
                smelling of mint and lavender
I rest face up on a high table
                under a fluffy towel
listening to surf and seagulls.

Her fingers untie the knots
                around my temples
at the back of the neck
                down my spine
as she talks about her birds
                and I tell her about my cat.

She squeezes stress out of my shoulders
                through my arms
releases it out of the tips
                of my fingers
moves my hips
                this way and that
bends and unbends the knees
                pushes her knuckles deep
into the soles of my feet -
                I suddenly remember
spraining an ankle
                jumping off the wall
surrounding the convent school
                I escaped from
when I was twelve.

It rained that day and
                the cardboard suitcase I tossed
over the wall had landed
                with a splash in a puddle.
The sound startled me and I
                almost turned back towards
another meal of hard bread
                and mushy pumpkin soup
I was told to swallow for Jesus
                while smells from nuns' kitchen
made my mouth water for beef
                stew and roasted chicken with
cucumber salad in sour cream
                salt, pepper,sprinkle of chives.

But then bells started ringing
                as every day four times
with their insistent summons
                to drafty chapel. Shivering
on narrow bench I was expected
                to adore a man and pray to
his body twisted in pain
                on a cross above the altar.
I jumped away from the bells.

A gentle voice has me turn
                on my stomach, naked,
on warm table, smelling of herbs.
                She shakes out my shoulders
kneads my buttocks and tighs
                and the tight calves' muscles
traces and retraces vertebrae
                strokes and pats my back.
I purr and drift
                between the ocean
and the touch of her healing hands.

My body and I
                go home
                         smiling at each other.

Izabel Sonia Ganz was born quite some time ago in Poland under a totally different name, and wrote poetry in French and Polish first. With a few European and one US academic degrees earned over the years ( she speaks a total of 6 languages) she now lives in the Southwest with her cat Magick and lots of hummingbirds, and writes poetry in many different styles, some of it even rhymes! She is planning to put her poems on a Homepage soon, in the meantime publishing on and off the net (among others in Moonstar Gallery, Agnieszka's Dowry, Sagewoman, Shadow Feast and The Electric Cafe).