Page 6 - Contrast1988Spring

Naked Shame

We floated from one hunk of stone
to the next,
slick palms pressed together--
in love at only eleven.

Gaugin, Rodin, Carpeaux.
I did not understand.

She slipped away, ran to a keeling fisherboy,
bare in all his frozen marble manhood.
I caught up, and felt blood
inexplicably
streak to my face
as she shot a hand out to stroke his glistening thigh,
cooing, "Isn't it beautiful?"
Glancing up into the boy's spritely grin,
her eyes smoldered lovingly
like the stone she caressed.
And in the high-ceiling silence of the room,
the two exchanged something I could sense
but not understand--

Couldn't she see,
except for the cap which lay on his head
and the oval lips of the sea shell pressed to his ear,
that this fisherboy
was completely naked?

We wandered the hollow rooms an hour more--
No longer could I hold her hand.

Jonathan Slade

2 Contrast Spring 1988