When I was small I thought horses
Were bald creatures,
Smooth as my plastic ones. How strange
When I saw one up close, stroked
Its shoulder, found it furry like a tall rabbit.
My body also was strange to myself,
All downy arms and legs, gentle
Fuzz of face, innards soft
Under skin, subtle and insidious.
I could not bear to get close enough
To see if I was the only one
Afflicted so. At a distance
My defects remained invisible
So I practiced being always
In the background of the picture,
Distant enough to be hazy, small
And malproportioned by perspective,
Approaching the vanishing point.