In The Bare Thing Len Lukowski delves into queer desire in an urgent rough and surprisingly playful fashion. Lukowski through a wickedly subversive sense of humor satirizes the plot of Notting Hill laments an unused dildo and in a lyrical flourish compares his lovers to the sky in a Van Gogh painting . The poems celebrate illicit desire and the male body s vulnerability; transitioning taking risks and opening the window to an unseen world.