Summer Bed

Who needs a reason
to be naked
in their own
summer bed?

A heat wave ought to be enough
to make you happy
to choose the exposure
but here you go again, rationalizing,

telling yourself 
that if you die in your sleep
it won’t matter to you
if they find you like this and

it’s so ridiculous
to think you’ll be forced
to rise from bed and fight
a home invader:

if they kill you naked
you’ll be as dead as
if you were clothed;
if you kill them

you’ll certainly have time to dress
before the coroner
and the police arrive — 
or you can choose to be found

in your just recently savage,
still bloodstained skin,
still clutching the bayonet
you keep by the bedside

or the baseball bat 
you keep by the bedroom door
against such an unlikely 
invasion of privacy. 

Sleep naked, then. You clearly
already have found enough
to worry about and no one’s
here to see or care.