Am I more beautiful than an otter?
A sensitive—a silken nerve, I lied.
I was dead set against research.
Lights still banished the darkness outside.

I forced myself to lie down
atop the uncomfortable counter.
Don't smear my oil. Crust of interest and speculation.
I was still in this bandaged naked condition when a door

opened: she hissed. I blinked. Very slow
and soft-footed. She trembled with malice.
Wineskin gourds almost pushed through her gown.
He began removing his plastic patches.

He peeled them off my skin. They ripped away
with a rasping noise. But again he began shivering
in the eyeteeth of his hurricane. Head forward, playfully,
I kissed the bald parchment between the two whisk brooms of hair.

His incurable weakness for the image of Eve
at one time taken from his side is apt to strike
one's funny bone: it is for this weakness I ask awe,
or at least respect. I felt like Leda, powerful, balloonlike.

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From a bunch of poems I wrote earlier this year, each of which begins with an "Am I?" question.