Flesh

Here's to flesh:

silky flesh,

and, oh yes,    bones;

3 cheers for ridges

hip and jaw.

Let's celebrate

the clavicle and the patella;

all the spaces where

my fingers, toes and tongue

dance upon the bony borders

of your body—

swirl and sweep and sway—

the tarantella and    the minuet.

 

Here's to the funny places:

to gnarled knees and hairy toes,

to nostrils and to knuckles.

 

To the Frog-King,

that sweet swaggerer

in all his phallic finery.

Bravo.  Bravo.

 

Here's to flesh:

haunch and shoulder, fat and brawn.

Hurrah to frail and fickle,

yielding flesh

and jutting bone.