Do you remember the rude nudists?
Lazing easy in girth and tongue,
wet slops and smacks of flesh as they buttered every crevice.
We were always hiking some hill toward some beauty some
human meanness ruined.
We were always waiting too long to let ourselves be seen.
It was an ocean's gesticulations, articulate elephant seals,
grounded clouds grown all one mouth.
What could we do but laugh,
casting clothes aside as if the air were ice and water a warm bed,
goose-stepping goose-pimpled past their appeased surprise into
What could we do?
We could—we did—love
take a long look
at each other
and creep quietly away.
Christian Wiman, "Do You Remember the Rude Nudists" from Every Riven Thing. Copyright © 2011 by Christian Wiman. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Source: Every Riven Thing
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010)