I get these girly magazines in the mail because
I’m writing short stories for them again
and here in these pages are these ladies
exposing their jewel boxes—
it looks more like a gynecologist’s 
journal—
everything boldly and clinically
exposed
beneath bland and bored physiognomies.
it’s a turn-off of gigantic
proportions:
the secret is in the
imagination—
take that away and you have dead
meat.

a century back
a man could be driven mad
by a well-turned
ankle, and
why not?
one could imagine
that the rest
would be
magical
indeed!

now they shove it at us like a
McDonald’s hamburger
on a platter.

there is hardly anything as beautiful as
a woman in a long dress
not even the sunrise
not even the geese flying south
in the long V formation
in the bright freshness
of early morning.