just the thumbs

cute guys who writhe --
ah cute guys who writhe --
cute guys who really truly WRITHE,
cute guys who roll around naked
on top of the sheets and WRITHE,
really WRITHE, well, they are nothing short of
wonderful.  twisting and
turning and rolling and extending
and flexing and well, WRITHING,
god, they are HOT.
cute guys who strip off all
their clothes and writhe,
who roll around naked
and exhibit paroxysms of ecstasy,
who stretch & wriggle & contort themselves
with the pleasure
and passion of being cute and naked
and sexual and alive and sensate
and who writhe and writhe
and writhe as the world
turns slowly:  ah, cute guys who
writhe! ah! cute guys who really WRITHE,
and mean it! "contortion" doesn't
begin to describe what they do.
"extreme stretching and flexing" --
that doesn't do it justice either.
"twisting and turning and
displaying themselves passionately and
exuberantly" comes close. but
what these guys do is WRITHE. and
when you see them writhe, you'll
know that what you've seen is writhing, and
you'll know that you want to
see it again.  by the way,
people also writhe in
the grips of pain, instead of
in the throes of joy. the
similarity of facial gestures can be
unsettling, and, to some, it is
quite troubling.  saints.
ah the tears and screams of the saints.
echoing into the night,
old church walls
shedding their paint.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem first appeared in Zygote in My Coffee, print issue #6, Winter 2009. It also appears in my book String Bean.)