My Naked Room
My naked room, one plate on the strewn desk. One chair, one hairbrush, soapflakes on the bed. Three desperate postcards on the naked wall. Looks back at my sad eyes, and speaks its need : A visitor.
A visitor in stockings, lipstick, heels, Who'll enter and undress And bathe the shabby rug, the walls, the floor In naked loveliness.
It should be you. Your nakedness has been In every room of mine. In fact or dream You take your coat off and the room is yours, Undo your blouse and distance is undone And I am home.
But home is full of furniture: clean plates, Of bedspreads, quarrels, filing cabinets, Soaptrays and meals on time. Men in their homes Wear worried looks, the women all wear clothes. And lamps wear lampshades.
In the candid bulb These peeling walls are forced to state their hope That you will enter, smile, hang up your hat, Take off a stocking, sit on the soiled bed, And offer, to my room the naked fact That now you've come It needs no clothes to wear the look of home.
LAURENCV. LERNER
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