The Naked
Paul Guest

I have tried to find in me some true line
or apt angle, tried with the searing

exactitude of the x-ray, and all I found
were bones. And this can be no surprise

to the naked, who never can shrug
off twistedness, as last night,

rolled from the shower and past
a mirror, I saw what I am and what

a child’s broken neck makes
of the future. Nothing so different

than what I might have known
in that densely starred sky

we know as the all of otherwise—
there where every atom

of every love I might have known
was not snuffed out

between the gaunt thumb and finger
of God. And there

my hips reflected don’t seem
a mess. There, my hands

fold perfectly a plane from paper
and hurl it to the wind.

Sleep, there, beside her
happened. A flower burned like a fuse.

The rain drew back
before me, cowed, all

the clouds above held
like the breath of someone falling.