Clothes

Animals wear no clothes
Nor birds, nor insects
Nor flies

None ever appears indecent
Perverse, ashamed
Hiding — or proud

Each visible to all —
To be seen
Shapely or unshapely
Messy or clean

How can hiding —
Covering oneself
Even from oneself —

Not be perverse
How can it ever
Not be a sickness

To be shamed —
Or proud —
To be laid bare
Like an animal

Like a cadaver —
That lies beneath

And to not be seen
As just meat —
Bare bodies
We clothe

To become
What we imagine
Ourselves to be

Our perversions
Sicknesses
Layers and masks —

Our humanity