Nude Studies by Solon H. Borglum, 1895. Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. A. Mervyn Davies.
to wear a man out
a floral top pressed to his skin
by a silken breeze
weather brings them closer:
bees emerge
from the soft petals of his chest
to thread each button
through its budding slit—fingers
pollinate in this fashion
the birds, too, how they nest in his
loose drapery, ruffle
their feathers in a sinuous dance
like a man, lithe
& bare-chested in a cage at the club—
arms flimsy, unfurling
there is an attraction to a delicacy
that enters:
to the smack of petal & stem
on bare skin,
to a man’s campy plumage
piercing night
& strobe light—somewhere in his
history, a smock,
a woman’s garment—somewhere
in this empty
dark, he spreads you wide, wears
you like fine linen