Untitled

Two boys

and girls

unclothed each other

simply at a picnic

flush with wine

alongside

sun-flecked trees.

The girls,

easy as the

forest round,

burned,

delicious,

as the boys

eager and nervous

in unequal measure

partly gave up

concealing

their joys

at forgetting

or remembering

in flickers

their bare bodies.

It went on

over nettles

and half-hours

and clambered

trees and

photos taken

almost formally

(on film,

of course).

And boyish lust,

at first sinuous,

a darting tongue,

began to

soften against,

for instance,

the sheer,

unthinkable

texture

of the two

girls carved

now backward

over the bough

of a storm-felled elm.

And there

in the embers

of evening

they learned

to thrill originally

at the vast,

gorgeous

and astonishing

irrelevance

of what

might happen next.

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