—for DC
Yesterday while
you were swilling me
I remembered how
bowled over I felt
my first time to Mars
robots blazing
Cold War turn-ons
For mine
you roll
blue and red
arias over
in your mouth
jib to the bow
all hands on deck
At BAM's Billy Budd
men sing about sleeping
& we view the stage
through nautical keyhole
Finally, an illusion I can trust:
it's what artifice is on
the inside that counts
My dermatologist is
herself
a series of rhymes
(dépêche mode in uniform)
severe lighting and spannung
long fingers tracing my lines
She snaps over my machine
and decrees diagnostic:
"Your affliction
responds to all advertising
featuring Sharon Stone
We must continue the injections"
I zip up and walk
out onto the ice
A foreign object
in my face
pulsates at the thought
of your channel
I bend hard sex toward you
as if
starring
in a beach commercial
for my paradise of leaning
Querelle
has always been
the way you incline
toward me
but I,
wanting to be
the breath
I see in the cold,
shove playbills
(a double
then a couple of triples)
into our communal vacuum
for safe keeping
for warm coming
Yesterday and today
my most whistled libretto
is as recognizable
as you:
The inside of my heart is a Levittown—
and you are a
giant leap for humankind—
whose lips are floral—
and whose grip,
a handful of hair -
