Because of Insects

posted May 4, 2010

Keep this secret, asks the late
50's professor while she grills me
between the trunk of my Honda
and her 1980's Lincoln Towncar.

I told Laura and Cheryl and Maria
the secret, invitation:
My husband and I are part of a nudist colony in Rockport,
                                                                                   let me know if you'd like to join.
I've never met a nudist.
Here, I'd wear turtlenecks,
but, it's hot—

and, yet, Thoreau, pssst: in wildness is the preservation of the world.
But, of course              mosquitoes.

Sara Kaplan is the author of Moon Talk. Her poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, Harpur Palate, LIT 9, The Cincinnati Review, Talking River Review, The Meadow, InLand, Ruminate, The New Vilna Review, decomP magazine, and MO: Writings from the River. She teaches Creative Writing, Composition, and Literature at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas.