The Czech landscape shivers out the sauna’s window.
If water moves, we cannot see it: an unclouded
horizon where willows line a riverbank. We
sit entranced, eyes trained beyond.
Some drop their towels—others
wind them tight. Pores release sweat
slicking skin, some wear emblems—
a woman’s arm vined and ivied, a man’s inked
lightning bolts frame the back of his neck where
he’s been taking names. One penis, porcine; a woman’s
breasts perked. We sneak looks, spy secrets—
the birthmarks of continents, scars abrupting pain,
each body’s battleground and all the color:
flesh and flesh—dark, ruddy, diaphanous—
miraculous. That cedar scent and electric sizzle. Mystics
filmy in steam. Among kindred:
vulnerable or what you see is what you get.
Steam rises bird-like, erotic as
the just-budding willows. Sometimes
we wear our bodies, sometimes not.