The Male Gaze
Maybe my imagination is out of focus.
By law, I can no longer trust my eyes,
nor can the world at large trust them.
Indeed they’re crimes waiting to happen.
I still believe I innocently perceive
the beautiful when I see it, and daily
feast on its sundry optical banquets.
After all, what the eyes see, the mind believes
and what it believes nourishes the soul.
A beautiful day is thus a beautiful day.
But when the eyes see legs coming
down the street, long legs, lean legs,
tanned legs with golden bristles,
legs like fiery chariots, legs like wings,
legs like verses from God’s epistle,
denial doesn’t amount to disbelief,
nor raising the hands as if to block
the eyes from a radiating sun flare,
or a thermonuclear blast. Avert them
how when the legs are thrust upon you,
striating, striding, flexing—fragrant
as the summer breeze they part and flail?
Maybe go Biblical and pluck them out?
But presuming all this, did God not make
me with these eyes? Did God not also make
these legs I see divine to some degree?
Horror Sleaze Trash 