Taking Off Your Dress Poem by Dónall Dempsey

My hands
taking off your dress.

You speak about
my hands

as if they were just

floating there

in the air

just my hands

taking off your dress
taking off your dress.

You whisper this
over & over

like a story you are
telling yourself

fascinated by just this
one detail.

Every time I ask you to explain
your answer’s always the same.

“Your hands...your hands
were so gentle

more gentle than I could ever have
imagined them

and I wanted them
oh...I wanted them

to take off my dress.”