Her sister was having an outdoor wedding
and she wanted someone to run naked
through the ceremony in order to ruin it.
Her posting received many replies. One inquired
whether he should be oiled. Another declared
he was fast and very hairy. One more responder
said he would summon his skydiver friends
to drop out of the sky and disrobe in front of
guests . . . or for a little extra they’d descend nude,
a gang of bare-assed assailants. If they all showed up,
there would be quite a congress of the undressed.
They would come from near and far. A man from
Norway commented he did this all the time
and could offer absolute shamelessness,
but since the affair was in the United States,
perchance would anyone be carrying firearms.
Such a communion of birthday suits. Such a
commotion in the service of holy matrimony.
Was all this enthusiasm meant to defile
the sanctity of marriage or just to upset
a tidy upscale event in Connecticut? No matter,
all that clamor would serve as a reminder
that just that morning in the shower
everyone was done up in the buff.
The spirit of a reunion with that state
could drive the whole lot to joy on a Saturday
afternoon. It could prod them to taste the knowledge
that this is why animals don’t wear clothes
when they take an oath before God.
Tim Kahl [http://www.timkahl.com] is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012) The String of Islands (Dink, 2015) and Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat, Mad Hatters’ Review, Indiana Review, Metazen, Ninth Letter, Sein und Werden, Notre Dame Review, The Really System, Konundrum Engine Literary Magazine, The Journal, The Volta, Parthenon West Review, Caliban and many other journals in the U.S. He is also editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Alliance. He also has a public installation in Sacramento {In Scarcity We Bare The Teeth}. He plays flutes, guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.