SoMa Literary Review - The Blind Voyeur

The Blind Voyeur

By Tantra Bensko

Pulling my painted shirt over my head

I am glad he is there, his hair

Parted straight down

The back of his head to his neck.

His red shirt clashes with orange

Pants. No one tells him these things.

I arch my back to lift my breasts,

Remember that arousal lifts them too.

I do arousal pushups.

“This is hard work!” I call to him;

he can’t argue with that.

I check to see if his eyes are the windows

Of all the houses facing mine.

No one seems to be there.

But my movements joke

With the uncertainty.

A wind blows him, in the tree.

A dew glints falling on his hands.

He drops down a leg to a lower branch,

Struggles with its crotch

That tries to keep his shoe.

I take off clothes more quickly

To keep him, swaying harder, so fast

I can’t help laughing.

He brings his foot back up

And turns his face toward me again.

Hurrah! His kindly portrait

I trace on the window pane

Lets in the moonlight

In his shape. It moves across

My tummy as I pull it in

And push it out.

Tantra Bensko has an MA in English from FSU, and an MFA in poetry from Iowa. She’s been honored with the Academy of American Poets Award and the Iowa Journal of Literary Studies Award, and has been published in numerous magazines, including Retort, Unlikely Stories, Mad Hatters Review, Sein und Werden, and The Angler, and many others. She is also an artist and Tantra teacher. Learn more at her website.