^{Gelatin silver print, Hal Fischer, 1977}

I swear, this filthy light could pass clean
            through me. My body—stretched & strung

across a wooden cross. Counterfeit
            Christ, corset abandoned in the corner.

There’s a precision to the intimacy
            of this ritual; strangers’ vicarious

hunger for gentle violence; being made
            a spectacle in a room filled up with spectacle.

It takes a measure of restraint. A precise
            velocity & angle to make wood or leather

into thunder. Snap & paint a red horizon
            on my spine, my ass, my chest, or thighs.

Mark skin the tint of stolen pomegranates
            split against cement, then faded to the shade

of winter figs. A broken still life—landscape
            layered over landscape. The gathered bodies:

Dom & sub, whip & cross & crowd, create
            a lexicon of their desires. Even the image

desires something—witness. When asked
            why he took the pictures of bondage gear

without a body in the frame, Fischer said:
            because it would have been too real.

Would have pushed too hard against
            an invisible boundary. Even the empty

frame demands something—a body
            to fill it. I fill it with a memory. My body

of hazy lines & thin glass longing
            to shatter.