Fusion

I’ve spent all week regretting 
the way I wore men like a skin—
not shame, not propriety,
but contrition for the merging,
the losing, the drowning in tongues,
the languages of bodies, as if
I could translate this to action,
to a path I’d take--a map here,
a vision there, created in
their attraction, as if I could
see a new me through their eyes.

Note: This poem is in a collaborative exhibit of the Gainesville Fine Arts Association and the Gainesville Writers Alliance called Hidden Histories. "Fusion" is my response to Caren Hackman's painting, "The Bather."