No time for modesty when they say
take off your clothes. And here
you dress in the dark, keep eyes
closed making love with your wife.
Every stitch, they say, even the pregnant ones,
even kids. Other side, tack-cloth jeans
shimmied over wet skin faster than a glance.
No tell-tale river trail. This
land full of promise, promise, and naked
you enter. Your life of merit just hen-scratch
in the sand. No longer straight As,
