‘The Great Rub-off’: A Poem by Martin Elster and Joan Axelrod-Contrada

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The Great Rub-off

Norm and Zip, in mismatched chairs,
__were sipping tea and talking,
when Desi, their loyal hound, said, “Listen,
__you’re shedding like me!” (How shocking!)

Norm spat out his quinoa,
__Zip spat out her tea.
Desi howled with laughter now:
__“Just sayin’. Don’t blame me!

And, by the way, your dead skin cells
__are in my bowl of water.”
Said Norm, “That dog of yours, I think,
__could not be any odder.”

Donning his Wikipedia hat,
__the scholarly hound replied,
“Humans shed a million skin cells
__daily till they’ve died.

The skin cells that you shed are habits
__better lost forever.”
Said Zip, “That metaphor, dear dog,
__is cool and pretty clever.

I’ve noticed Norm, the germophobe,
__has lately eaten cereal
he dropped on the floor and not thought twice
__about all things bacterial.”

And Norm watched Zippy, the free spirit,
__scanning a food label
and even putting vegan dishes
__on their dinner table.

“Shed? No, no! I exfoliate,”
__said Norm, his arms flung wide.
“If not renewed, my epidermis
__would get all bleached and dried.”

Desi the Wise said, “Rubbing off
__on each other’s what’s occurring.”
As Norm and Zip began to touch,
__their stubborn ways were blurring.

Neurotic cells and feisty cells
__jived and swung and twirled,
swapping each other’s quirks and habits,
__changing their whole world.

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Martin Elster was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Martin’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad. A full-length collection, Celestial Euphony, was published by Plum White Press in 2019. Dogged: A Verse Novel is a collaboration between Martin and Joan Axelrod-Contrada.

Joan Axelrod-Contrada, who lives for rhyme, has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in the U.S. In addition to poetry, she writes essays, articles, plays, and children’s books.