Envy Dries Slower Than Skin

his is a Terza Rima poetic form. I hope you enjoy it.

Dawn’s pewter hush�"then gabbling geese, white lace on gun-metal.

Pearled necks crane like a Baptist choir, rustling hymnals of disapproval.

I smile, wade in, let the cold tongue lick each golden thigh�"baptizing their gossip with a cheek flush.

“Here she comes again,” clacks one ole bitty, “buck-naked as sin on a Sunday.”

another, softer, “But Lordy�"look at that crescent moon she calls an a*s�"

carved from hundreds of hours at the altar of laps and long trail runs.”

Turkeys line the shore, red wattles flicking like silk ties at a cocktail bash.

Let them smirk, let them covet; their fantasies are feathers I shake from my skin.

I roll to my back, offering the sky a marbled torso�"free, wild and unmasked.

A redeye descends, its shadow skims my dark, round-eyed, glistening twins.

Through the oval window a stranger peers down�"do they ache to trade places?

I salute with lazy fingers; envy, like contrails, dissolves with my perceived sin.

The lake turns church-window hues, a sacred escape to liquid spaces.

I rise from the lake, water cascading in liquid applause down breasts and thighs.

Let the world resent, let it whisper; I inhabit this skin like a kingdom’s praise.

I towel off slow, each stroke a blessing to these clear, blue, nude skies,

while geese, turkeys, strangers aloft still choke on the martinis of their gaze.

Remember this, voyeurs�"my bronze is hard earned; envy dries slower than skin.