Vitamin D & Death

Poem of the Day:
"Pillow Talk" by Jeni Olin
Hold Tight: The Truck Darling Poems


Today, en route to my internship, I browsed the NY Times -- thank you iPhone. Of particular interest was an article in the Personal Health section entitled "What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D." The article spoke of a growing consensus among doctors: what today's people lack most in their diet is vitamin D. But actually the most efficient way to get vitamin D is not through the avenue of food choice but via sun rays. For instance, the article suggests "going outside in summer unprotected by sunscreen...wearing minimal clothing from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. two or three times a week for 5 to 10 minutes." Needless to say my Irish skin crawled.

Olin writes of her dead loved one; "Death, the great highlighter, makes us all shine/a bit more dearly" (lines 11-12). He is a brilliant orb, and Olin's speaker "needs sunblock/against [his] blinding legacy" (line 12-13). Her tone is ambiguous though. It is hyperbolic ("I used to get my cardio up/by just sleeping next to you"), and therefore at times sarcastic. Yet, the final line is loose in speech, suggesting a relinquishing of her prior tone and a true affection for the man she has lost. Olin sighs in finish, "OMG I miss you" (line 21).

Brightness, brightness, brightness. Olin is ablaze beneath her dead lover's "legacy," and the NY Times is proposing I be ablaze as well, sans sunscreen -- dream on newspapermen. This girl burns with a swiftness you haven't seen.


Sincerely,
A Poem A Day Audrey