A risk-prone boyfriend told me once:
The one appealing thing about death
is a possible striptease in the afterlife.
He drove me at night to his parents’ cabin
in a Texas town without a name.
After hours of sex, we waited naked
at the edge of the lake—a shivering hole—
and in our vibrating, black reflection, found
our nakedness inadequate:
wanted nothing less than for the sky
to rip away from its frame of silence
like a velvet dress from a woman’s body.
No, like human flesh from a perfect bone.
