I have a thing for a headless mannequin
at Peachie Lingerie, just down the street.
The shop is four doors from our apartment
so it’s not like I prowl the shopping strip,
looking for trouble or low-hanging fruit
and, anyway, I was living on this street
before ‘she’ arrived and started all this.
Last week it was a silky black French set,
this week it’s headless huntress-leopard.
Asking me not to look as I pass is like
asking my partner not to stare into
the piercing blue eyes of Brad Pitt
on TV – in the sanctity of our bedroom –
advertising a brand of coffee machine.
Luckily, glass walls exist between us
and our objets de desir. Lingerie shop
does, however, have a front door and
with someone’s birthday, etc coming
up, I shall enter coyly, act casual
and do what a man must do if
he’s to get somewhere.

Allan Lake is a poet originally from Allover, Canada who now lives in Allover, Australia. Some Coincidence! His latest chapbook of poems, My Photos of Sicily, was published by Gininnderra Press (Aus), 2020. It contains no photos, only poems.