Beauty Remains Beside the Point
Paul Hostovsky

Take my physical therapist, Ashley.
She calls my name out in the waiting room
and I look up from my book and into
the gorgeous music of her smile
which fills the room like an entire
flute section rising up to the chandeliers
and down my spine, glancing off the walls
and into my loins, and I say something about
the weather as I follow her down the hallway
to a little room with a table and two blue chairs
where we sit down together with her beauty
which remains completely beside the point
as she asks me questions about my back pain
and I tell her where it hurts and how much
and since when, and she writes this all down
on her clipboard while I notice her hands,
how slender they are, and how smooth,
but I don’t say a word about her hands
or the decrescendo smile between her ears
or the ear which she keeps telling with her hand
to keep the beautiful whispers of her falling hair
to itself. What’s the point of beauty? I ask myself
lying flat on my stomach on the table
under the hands of Ashley and the ultrasound,
her beauty behind me now, so I can’t see
its point, sharp and glinting beside the pain.