LGBTQ+

Loved you since I was little, on the playground break-time
-brawled with you and your mismatched cuffs…

I: My beloved is called an inconceivable beast, a spectacle diagnosed with teratoid genitalia, a chaos…

This love dares not speak its name
in some states
until your eyes say it
on a beach in Ft. Lauderdale…

Garth Greenwell on shame, small acts of love, and the patch of snow inside us.

Clouds in his throat,
six months' worth.
He bodies into me
half cosmos, half coyote.
We become night
on Bread…

Oh, don’t worry, we will let           our hair down tonight—
but first we must remember           on this stage, the queen
we lost, who they killed           not too far from here
just...

letting  the words fly like smoke uncurling from our mouths
we lie in bed with dykes ten years our junior, make
pot heaps to share, sleep in the same flannel sheets,
plot colored artist collaborations underground and not top 40,
draw the constellations from...

I pray for us
as evening  glides over
implore the gods
pray for us         pray
for this breathing
planet the           milky way
dreams us
into galaxy
no need for heaven this
is how it started:
way out beyond         we
below
the sweet of your lips
dipped in promise
anxieties claim us
bark and skin
what we...

My father said to me once            your only choices are            the factories. Oil stains or
the selfsame bruises.            No longings for the night.            Looking back I think of
things I could have done            differently ... Sure,            it could have all been different,
but what’s the use now, when             all...

At my beloved’s burial,
I can’t see his body.

Only carnations. I hear
your name and my beloved’s

in the …

My friend is by no means Dracula or a werewolf,
but the full moon’s mostly lawless beauty

has never failed to tantalize him,
to lure him outdoors.

Tonight the gallivanting moon,
all systems go,

makes a pallid cascade in the Roman street,
while my spirited mentor relates,

over...

The children in the life:
Another telephone call. Another man gone.
How many pages are left in my diary?
Do I have enough pencils? Enough ink?
I count on my fingers and toes the past kisses,
the incubating years, the months ahead.

Thousands. Many thousands
Many thousands...

Most wounds are circles, so it’s no surprise
you’ll find me here. Alone. On my knees, on evenings
when the moon hangs low. The brown boy
behind the hole—not quite the size
of a cave or a cigarette burn. Splitting open
my lips the way...

No matter who leads tonight, who follows,
I feel his stare as we work the floor.

He swaggers from heel to toe.
Is it his smile?
                      Or his eyes I can’t ignore?

Even the lights wink, catching the pearled
buttons on his black paisley shirt.

The whole...