THAT'S TORN IT

for MH-S

If the Minister of State for Health dropped his keys
in the street outside his home and bent from his back
and not from his knees as we're told, then his trousers
would stretch over his arse and rip. And the cameras
would catch it in a battering of flashbulbs and the hacks
would laugh at the red lipstick print emblazoned
across both cheeks as if they'd been kissed. His wife
would stand in the window aghast, while tatters
of fabric flapped round his bum before tumbling down
to his ankles. A leveller this. Stood in the street,
feeling the breeze on your balls and your thin thighs
twitching like a giraffe standing after just being born.

NUDES

When I surprised
a woman showering,
sorry towelling
her hair, I did not see
the full beaver
only its tail, say,
peeping through
her modest fingers,
the coyness transfigured
to a nervous smile.


Here, before the mirror,
the shame returns
in rolls of hairy flesh
that falls and folds
about the hips and ankles
like a towel, dropped
in a communal shower
at a swimming pool, say,


his body, younger,
leaner, firmer,
turned to catch it,
caught instead 
my eyes, snagged
on the tip of his prick,
erect. Flushing red,
I swear, he lingered,
showering in my gaze,
before he lifted the towel
and hid it away.