"Nobody's Perfect"

I continue to pull back layers and images I never realized as I write to prompts. A prompt creates an image, a scene, in my mind, and I follow it, trying to find the words to show what I see. Sometimes, like with today's prompt, it's something as simple as a shrug, a turning away, and I jot down the image and keep writing what happens as the scene unfurls.

And thus a poem.

This week's Carry On Tuesday Prompt #58 consists of the first words spoken in Billy Wilder's (in)famous movie Some Like It Hot:
"Well, nobody's perfect."

Nobody's Perfect
"Well, nobody's perfect,"
he shrugged,
shifting away from her.
Not able to see his face,
she couldn't watch the guilt
twisting his mouth ironic,
the self-loathing in his eyes deep.

Clipped was his voice,
chilling her--
signaling the end of a discussion
that had never begun.
She noticed the back of his neck
pinkening
above his white dress shirt,
a sign she easily recognized
from twelve years of marriage.

In that unconscious
blush she read his guilt--
and his contrition--
as clearly as if
he had confessed all,
begging apology.

Rising silently,
she slipped forgiving arms
around his warm waist,
pressing her lips gently
to the flushed neck
above his starched collar.

Copyright 2010 by Susanne Barrett