To remove your clothing
in public
is dramatic, perhaps even brave
or useful; to put clothing back on
when one has been
publicly nude
is also dramatic, but
this is not usually done
for an audience, as most
prefer the end of mystery
to the resumption of mystery
and see the latter as deception;
when one resumes a deception
before the world,
those who became naked as afterthought
and did not participate
in the original drama will feel cold
and cheated.

All this is to say
that to decide to swim naked
in the main stream
ought usually to be a final choice.
One should not go backwards from there;
indeed, it is made nearly impossible
by the ever-judging audience.
They know you too well,
you see,
for any of them to not picture you
naked ever again.

Still, there are those
who do pull it off,
but it takes time and patience
to be among them,
and you must wait
for an entire generation to pass
before you can walk out clothed
as you wish again, out there
among your disowned heirs, the nude
public, in all their skin
and bare finery. 

No matter how wonderfully
you are arrayed,

it feels a little hollow
when you step out that way.

It’s a shuttered charm school
in here: a lot of ghosts learned
in the arts of restraint and poise,
but not much that’s still alive.

All I can taste is smoke
from the butt-end
of a burned heart.
It’s all I can do to stay inside.

If the door I used to come in
is still clear and still leads back
to clean air, I can’t see it.
I should have left a trail.

As it is, I’m stuck here, I guess,
learning to make sense of this;
drinking poison with my pinky raised,
choking on it with my lips sealed.

It’s all I can do to stay inside.
The whole damn place is still alive.
I should have left a trail; better still,
I should have left this sealed.