This is a nested poem. Use the slider (or, if you’re using a desktop, your cursor) to reveal the different layers.



Undressing is an act of surrender,
even if it’s merely removing one’s sunglasses. The pleasure
(when it is pleasurable) is in giving in finally,
whether it’s to a slowing, or pinwheeling, of the moment,
or to a kindness of the shock-dishevelling sort.
Dandyishly, you shift into a new gear,
or you attain a distance from the previous order of things,
like an eyelash unhooked from its bedding.
Just a minor spell, say, to ward away devastation.
A sendoff, summoned absence or unburdening.
The city which then hangs upon you
is more lifelike, its milky cosmochemistry
playing like a skin flick on the window.