Strange, the way
memory rakes across my sands,
a moon has its mysticisms, rolls
right in then slips away, and
there you are on my shore,
visceral, vivid, I –

I can’t explain my nostalgia
for your days as a prep cook
in Chinatown, I guess I
just hadn’t thought of it in years,
shelling clams, shoestring
wrapped around the cover of
your knife in your bag, on
some train, the sweat
on your brow, and
TV on my couch, the
scratching of legs, make
a joke and then turn
to find you sleeping.

If I’m honest, I
haven’t let my mind
dwell among the moments
that kept me treading water in your
orbit, easier to document the lessons
spelled in scar tissue, but
time is saltwater, eroding
the sharp edges and, by
benefit of the blur, I
weigh in my hands the
hope you are proud
about those days, the spark
of magic, your hands to
the plate.

When a wave departs, the
shells lay bare, jagged mosaic,
among them, the living rise
to tunnel from view, safe
from the seagulls and the
hands of children, reckless
and wild, ’til the hour
grows late or game goes
idle, our nod to carry our
things on home.

Gay boy, you are beautiful, right
here in the gold-sheen wash, this
very moment, you break into laughter
and what an honor, seeing you, here,
all those years you lived like a
ship in a bottle, held your breath
then squeezed your way through
that narrow neck, heartbeat in
your throat as you stammered
the truth, just to feel what it is
to breathe the honest air, and
what a gift, what a love letter –

By the pool, your fingertips fidget
at your shirtline, eyes scan the
scene for smoke to signal danger,
just another place you don’t belong,
but, in silence, you breathe like
a chorus rehearsed, and then
you pull free, only this way can
your shoulders know sun, let
freedom rinse, we are here and
in our palms we carry beauty
we won’t quite see until
time slows our bodies, right
this minute, prescient, urgent,
lovely, ours, you are
beautiful, gay boy, you.

Please don’t forget to be
a little in love with everything
surrounding you this evening, here
for now and only that, weep
for the orange tabby who nests
and revels toward your heartbeat,
ribcaged, but never reveals
the secrets of its singing, paws
pressed, tender, into flesh, sheathing
the sharp, instinctual wild
for this lamplight nap.

You are thirty-six, cradling
three dozen reasons not to
trust the luster of just
any literary notion, but
go on, make poetry of
the mundane miracle of
life and all its unlikelihoods,
can you believe we get to
exist together, you lift your
glass at an Applebee’s, laughter
as everybody’s chaser.

One day, unknowing, you will
go on your final run, that
familiar rise and rhythm and
thunderous bloodstream, so
loop, twist those shoestrings
like a ritual, a prayer, a dance –
the Earth steadily spun
‘neath the needle of your
devoted watch, let the
infatuation hold you, sold,
quiet embarrassment of riches,
everywhere, the cinema pales
in its desperation to capture,
run your hands over everything,
everything right this second.

Adventures in becoming gentler
and gentler, shed those skins
through the pileup of days,
chapters stacked and we revel
in the tender flesh we were
many times cautioned to armor,
press the photo of a man whose
teeth left scar tissue to my
lips then set him free, billowing
in the wake of that wanting,
goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, I
traded my dagger for dancing,
morning coffee in lieu of the
vodka soda bloodstained by
cranberry.

Relentless are the barricades
along the parade route, but
breathe with me, I know
the way, when we arrive,
we all kiss, we hug at the
miracle, our arrival, and
the joy is a sun-soaked blur,
every year, we are more us,
you know the stories I will tell
so you sing along to the
best parts, our becoming
akin to an unmasking, we,
the children who hid beneath
the cloaks of stoic gods.

At the train tracks, I
give voice to a pigeon pacing,
well, hello there, he the
wizened admiral, esteemed and
long-stationed, you giggle
along and fall in love with
me today, so my lips
stamp your forehead, we
would have played together
as children, inventing
the adventure, and always,
yes, always becoming.

Looking back, they were easier days,
sunshine Muncie, lemon wedge awash
in purple beer, and we lifelong students,
no need to report to class, sprinting
across campus under nightfall, snicker
as we whisper, you are my slice
of infinity, report to work at sunrise,
cut class for drive-thru coffee
the minute you text –

Our inner children, those were
their final hours, so we lit up
those rafters, lullaby audacious,
oh, we grieved in our dreaming,
somatic scrape of a heart’s first
breaking, compared scars under
barstool lighting, children still
finding play at hour eleven –
before divorce or credit debt or
cocaine Joey or the
phone call that catches in
your sternum and stays, stays, stays,
only thing worse would be
forgetting.

My mind wanders to your mother,
then wanders to my mother and I
chastise myself selfish, I wonder
about the last bite of food that
made her eyes widen, I
wish to see it, hear the belly
laugh catching her unawares,
the final movie to push her to
tears, glimpses of a woman
that was, and is, I know, I know–
you are her slice of infinity,
in her absence, her presence
echoes, press my ear to your
chest to listen, eyes shut,
marvel at the melody
she knew without practicing.

How glamorous, love
in the early hours, amorous, so
lovely to wake up wanted, wanting,
revel in gold-soaked reflection, to be
all possibility, all tender flesh
and wet-lipped gasp, rumpled
blankets and ordering Thai, fuck it,
answer the door naked, grin my
thanks through the crack and
turn back, winking, watching
pupils dilate, all the stories
brand new and the audience bare,
what a time, being all adventure
and no labor – all magic, no mess.

Harrowing is the crash,
egos flail in the fall, fingernails
scrape for their pound of flesh,
every mirror in the house warping
at once, now I am all my flaws
out loud: so stubborn, so needy, so
convinced I am right, and
don’t forget the way I ruined
the very best nights, everyone says,
everyone whispers how ugly,
how broken I turned out, but,
oh, I’ve got stories, too, vivid
the prose that bears your thorns,
take a look, laugh in horror,
echoed against funhouse walls.

Sing along, you know this
chorus: we say we said things
we didn’t mean (we meant them),
in the loving, bruising, shattering,
shedding, rediscovery on that
morning, long-awaited, where you
first broke into laughter, the epiphany
you’ve missed that sound, the
rinse of letting go, but love
changes the color, lovers leave,
leaving stains in their wake, and
how lovely, how harrowing,
to bask in that threadbare mosaic.

When you call me faggot, you
expect my shrinking, the
breath catch startle and flinch,
my eyes, the white widening,
dagger, razor-sharp, thrown
with surgical precision, you
imagine, watching me flail,
wounded animal, bleeding
deer, stumbling around,
futile, forested floor, o,
the brutality of man.

But no,
the moment you say it, faggot,
our pupils dilate, mine, yours, I see
you, and, worse, you see me see
you, stammering your hate,
shouting to keep your smallness
at bay, and, despite our knowing
your misfire was a shot to kill,
pity blooms in my chest
at the fearful beast, cornered
dog, watching me see you.

You, who will never know
the lightness of loving, the
dancefloor-belted chorus,
grotesque the heart that finds
rage in rainbows, what
terrible company you must be
to yourself, lazy daggers and
hand-me-down hatred,
you, fearful, small, lazy, and
smug, lonely are your
limits, and desperate,
your daggers.

June is an old neighbor, ambling yet again
through our home-storied streets, verdant brush,
sun-soaked shoulders against the hedges, I
extend behind me an open palm at
some sidewalk’s narrow, so you take it,
sunshower lover, we are drunk
on the amber rays, on a rinse of beer, I
hand you a watermelon candy, bright idea,
so we kiss, breaking apart to
grin at the cinema of it, the flavor of
a day with no agenda, neon pink,
without apology.

Shakespeare breaks out in the bar,
so we all shout huzzah, we marvel
at the magic, midsummer nights
in iambic pentameter, I whisper the
secret in your ear: You can only understand
when you let yourself feel it without asking
questions, and we laugh, fall to
ribbons, as you confess you still
don’t get it.

Wander we through the slopes
of Forest Park, no sweat, I have
wanted for days like this, and
our feet know these pathways, so
we are free to improvise our
soliloquies, each of us a Mercutio
who refused to go to his grave
making light of his wounds for the
sake of others, lover, we are
far too romantic for such romance,
sturdy is the build of our devoted
palms, pentameter be damned,
watermelon bright, June just one
among the company we keep.

What’s left of the wine pools,
cranberry halo, incriminating, and
it echoes, Lisa’s laughter, because
we’ve been here before, we shout
‘every true friend is a deja vu we’ve
chosen,’ and I clear the calendar
to find you in every far-flung
town, bask in the balm of our
time travel revelry, ’til today’s
aches hush and listen to the
war stories we already won.

West Virginia, take me under
the sobbing of your skies, I want
to shout-sing the chorus with my
friends, hug and grin and laugh,
invent beach ball games and lose
them anyway, want to catch the
mischief in memories, we sigh
and wish we could’ve known,
all those young years ago, we’d
be here and doing just damn fine,
after all, every last mile.

Truth is that Ross never learned
how to leave the party, great wild
believer in this life and its rich,
vivid edges, so we belt all God’s
best melodies in the car, just to
stave off the creep of melancholy
violets and grays, Nicole Kidman
in porcelain profile, we should
be lovers, let the laundry
sit tonight, begs the ritual, let
tomorrow steal not a single
second from today, miracle
transient, magic harnessed and
held.

No, I don’t like going to Boston
these days cause it just makes me
homesick for Chris, wandering
new avenues as old friends,
sneaking glimpses of the world
through pilsner sun streaks,
this old town just a time I
can’t recreate, these days,
and Muncie aches with echoes
of forever-long summers, counting
keys and dodging geese, we
were there and then
time packed our bags and
we made home and made
home and –

In a Pittsburgh alleyway, I
find a bird, still and staring
at the back stairs of a strange
house, stop in wonder
then feel the sinking of that
age-old knowing: it is gone,
the world and its winds in its
wings and then a whispered
death, so final, so strange,
and my eyes well up, I
hope it didn’t feel alone.

When the earliest people
carved out lives, did the
first deaths startle them? Or
was there always this
knowing, grief as instinct?
We are miraculous, we,
mundane and then
stacks of stories we
hope will somehow
carry us forward.

I’m old enough to know
what people say on
the riptide days, and
grief is a teacher shrugging
at the way people offer
as wisdom the ideas they
use to comfort their
own trembling breath,
we might admit that,
somehow, we’ve never
made sense of time and
finalities, just birds in
some springtime, warbling
into the wind.