Locker Room Poem by Hugh Joseph Curran

LOCKER ROOM
Undressing in the locker room, his hair spiked, his speckled eyes
conflicted, his tongue emitting barely articulate sounds as he burst

forth in a back and forth conversation; others hastened to towel off
and depart to avoid a verbal encounter with the inexplicable;

When I asked who he was talking to he was unashamed and sideways
looked at me, surprised that the phantom in his mind was unseen; still

immersed in a dialogue he walked into the shower murmuring with a
certain dignity: 'It's my mother I'm arguing with'.