I found it in my parents’ room.
center-bottom dresser drawer,
beneath the socks: a little plastic scope
with a naked woman posed inside,
breasts uplifted, red hair flowing down,
a globe balanced on one shoulder,
like Atlas in my Classics comic book
and seeming from that nether world.
I peeped and peeped again, felt brash
as Peeping Tom, who eyed Godiva’s
plenty as she rode through Coventry,
past discreetly shuttered windows;
randy as the lecher leering
at his master’s wife undressing
in the nickel peep show classic
What the Butler Saw; licentious
as those elders ogling Susanna
at her bath among the honeysuckle.
But I felt more like Howard Carter
at his first peep through the door
to Tutankhamun’s shadowed chambers
when asked if there was anything
inside to see. “Yes,” he said.
“Wonderful things.”