Poetry

Onsen

Leon Trainor

Here, among enormous rocks,

hot springs bubble from the earth

and Japanese men flaunt their worth,

or not: some choose to hide their cocks

with towels but the boldest stands

upright amid clouds of steam

regardless of his kinks and bends.

The waters make us sweat and dream,

our nakedness responds in these

forty sulphurous degrees:

doped to the gills, we slip our bonds.

Each moment here prolongs the hope

that we will be reborn from this

measureless, amniotic bliss.