GYMNOPHOBIA
Fear of Nudity

Nathalie Anderson


Above us the Disco-Bats flicked their privates:
open, shut.  Nothing we hadn’t seen before.
Sequined, celestial: sissy-folk slip out, in.
Bird-women.  Fly-boys.  Starkers, snootfull of smooch.

Hoodwinked?  Ha!  Nothing we hadn’t tried.  False face,
nudish: each pricked veil, each spangled spread.  Diddling
disguises--nothing we hadn’t worn: romance,
lubricity.  Cupid’s eye-patch, coruscant.

Fly-by-nights.  Short-falls.  Bats swallow
their pleasures.  Lippy muzzles, scintillant,
leap to the eye.  Under the suck-guttle,
under the glut: feel it--the crawling skin.
Copyright © CrossConnect, Inc. 1996

[ POETRY INDEX | ISSUE CONTENTS | XCONNECT COVER | E-MAIL ]