from nearly naked
[a treatise on near-nudity]
rarely naked
an exploration
_________________________________________________________________________
(2xist: varsity trunk)
there is a way to undress a man, a method to unfold
his skins until they are schematics: Beneath his stomach
like a treasure map, leading. . . a trail of cookie crumbs,
curled casual emphasis between a belly button
and an occasion. All that is holy is hidden. Brief
contact between skin and cotton leaves the imagination:
fevered, horny, helpless.
(go softwear: Hibiscus Lo-rise brief)
the way the sides slide and straddle
the hips. How walking stride
meets stride and the fabric neatly
rides the circumference
of his width.
(andrew christian: lifeguard brief)
Who needs saving? This
plus sign marks the spot
I'll dig and you
dig too, your hands
are underneath your waist-
band and what I can't see
will kill me. I wonder aloud,
"do you wear this kind
of invitation often?" You grin,
sigh, and let me reach up
your leg and inside -
the rest is summer and the heat was to blame.
merely naked
an interjection
_________________________________________________________________________
This is what I'm telling you,
our bodies are but barely are -
plain skins, tinted by some maker, unseen, obscene in his redundant
eye: Muscles ripple under flesh, rip when thinned with force, spilling
out all our human yuck. We all
need a little fiction, between my meat
and your meat, a little nebulous friction
sanding down the rawness of a naked man.
nearly naked
an immolation
_________________________________________________________________________
i.
He comes bathed in night light glow, neither
angelic nor euphoric, but near
naked which is enough.
He comes swathed in primal conversation,
ego versus id. The restrained
outline of him stacks the odds; he's
steeping in earthly delight, a black tea hot and strong
for the savagery in me. How awful it is
when a man knows he is a man.
I have a bone to pick with him, it's about his shape
and how his legs are like titans. I'm tired
of arousal, of the thought of him stripped
to white hot nylon nature, of how he presses against
the pouch like a prison which somehow cages
the viewer, of how his boxer briefs collect
something more personal than he is aware of.
He comes to bed wearing barely more than a receipt
of commerce: matted hair, wet skin
and a piece of fabric meant to obscure, not
incite, the wandering eye. I put one hand on him
and one wonders
aches, longs, wanders the space between
him, me, his temporary skin and our second round.
ii. (first)
Breathe, it's all you have to remember
as his body comes down to meet
your body. Electric, is all you have
time to think before his groin meets
your groin. Jesus, is not present
but in the holy-twinge of cloth meeting
cloth. Relax, is the only encouragement
you can safely ignore as his lips meet
your lips. Coming, is cut short, just a stutter
before stars kiss your vision and heavens meet.
