Peeping Thomas

To seek in the brine what is promised in heaven
— anyone with sense can plainly see the madness of it.
— Vitae Sanctorum II, 293

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve,
was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So
the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks
in his hands and put my finger where the nails
were, and put my hand into his side, I will
not believe it.”
-- John 20:24-25

Eye to the keyhole I spy the naked
world, enthralled with every curvature
which collapses my desire, like
waves. The ban on peeking is
from the world of fathers who
sternly point us the other way
toward aching labors in light-soaked
fields, yelling loud and drear
to leave breasts behind, exchanging
milk for something bitterer, less clear.
But also in their stern advice
they suspect their sons’ desire
is more fructive in their wives’
more perplex hearts than their own.
Observe the mother walking to
the gym with son held to her shoulder
and she talking to him as if
into a perfected world which
had no need of husbands again.
But what does she really know?
She may queen the boy’s high heaven,
but we all know his cock is stout
for that and more, aching for what’s
under and hidden in the rear. His
desire is an augment of delight
that’s amped by guilt and fear
as much as puerile, native lust.
I am set upon by those dogs
whenever I stray beyond
my daily sinecure of tasks
and peer beyond those walls
into her glade of greeny languor,
my eyes drinking springs au natural
like shots of high-proof liquor.
Oh well: the keyhole may be on my
mother’s bedroom door, but
the nude naughtiness inside belongs
to me, scanned from regions
both internal and infernal, its
thirst for waters welled within
this teeming, sulfurous brain.
My attention slathers every peek
with that immortal soulish juice,
for which the profane and nipple
blue is both holy grail and sluice,
the marauding muse my side of shores.
Each poem strains to glimpse
one more naked inch than before,
engaged in sacred naughtiness
more wild than yet believed.
I know there’s hell to pay for
these ritual outrages on the taboo
world, even when broken on paper.
This knowledge I hold secret
and vault in books shelved far from view.
You’ve got to tunnel in the darkest
voids I dream to find the blasted heath
where stands the red lacquered bookcase
lined with brimming texts of wildest thrills,
that wing of the library with the flaming
door and liquid walls. There you’ll find
both breviary and bestiary of love’s
catalogue, every blonde and redhead
numen in the world reveled, retold.
Every angle of the heart and balls and
mind a man in life sells his soul for
just one peek. I’ve supped that world
full tilt in words which whirled and
hurled communion back. That damned
keyhole will be the death of me,
I’m sure. But o what other way is
there to go but in the wave’s last
curve and smash to wash these orbs,
carrying them down the blue uteral flow?