Shunga

Shunga, literally translated from Japanese, means “Images of Spring”. They are erotic paintings and woodblock prints done by artists in the Ukiyo-e (Floating World) Period. These pieces were made to both educate the daughters and sons of high-ranking officials on the art of love, pleasure, and personal hygiene, and to entertain certain tastes of their patrons. Shunga were produced in enpon, or “pillow books”, and proved quite a lucrative business, though most artists practiced discretion by leaving their paintings and prints unsigned. The intensity of these pieces shocked the early Western world, though the Japanese artists had no notion of guilt or shame. It illustrated a new perspective of the body and sex as part of the natural world.

How do they manage,
Making love amid the cloth,
White limbs lost in dunes of heavy
Cherry blossom royal purple silk,
Tiny red lips locked in a kiss.
She undulates,
Fold after fold after rich-dyed fold,
White petals lost in the pink.
Robe on robe,
They move together.
A tangle of limbs
And half-
Undone knots,
Behind a half-shut screen.

How can they even feel, I wonder,
With the many layers of proper padding
Between them.
How must it have been,
Him feeling his way
Through the labyrinth-patterns
And the deep hues
On her myriad petticoats
To reach her?

They sink together
Deeper into the fabric,
Finding each other in gropes
And kisses through
Well-bred cotton.
Not all the decency
Bound into hems
Lain layer on layer
Could keep them
Inside their second skin.