FASCINATION IN THE FLESH

Mama is standing
in the aisle

of a Boeing 737 
bouncing her baby 

on her hip. The little tike,
 a squirmer, not satisfied

with the jauntiness
his mother is offering,

reaches up and grabs it, 
her ear. And she lets him.

All the boy’s attention
goes to the flaccid flap,

to pawing the soft 
tissue, the ridges 

and curves
mushrooming

from the willing,
tilted head. The tiny

toy finger: a mouse’s
pink nose poking

at the walls
of its maze,

is happy to be lost 
in this labyrinth. 

I don’t know who
is more transfixed,

the little hipster
playing with the putty

of his mother's ear 
or me trying to fashion

a poem from a toddler's
buoyant, fleshy fetish.