A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
                                            —Robert Herrick

For as my heart, e’en so my eye
Is won with flesh, not drapery.
                                            —Robert Herrick

My mistress played poker with me last night,
donning a new article each time I won,

while also stripping me of a belt or shirt
or sock since I was dressed and she was not

when we began, the one condition to which
I agreed. But I grew tired of winning and wished

for losing hands, discarding pairs and threes
of a kind until she was nude again

and I was dressed like a child in winter
with so much on I saw what a fool I’d been

for wanting to win each time. How winning
was a ruse through which she saw from the start

with her poker face but continued to play
like a shark in reverse for the chance to win

by losing again. To open her boxes beneath
the bed, try on the dresses one by one, and the

the shoes and under things. To confuse me then
about which was best: Removing her heels

or slipping them on? Baring her breasts
or covering them up? Hoisting her thong

or the opposite? I was of two minds on this,
so unresolved, I couldn’t decide, which stacked

the deck with random cards, doubling
my luck from there on in, despite my hands.