Three Boys
after the painting by Salman Toor
You’re slacked over,
feathered in your own brilliance,
my grip on your body loosening.
I am the curly haired
farm boy, your boy.
You bite my pearl-pierced ear
and it falls off like a pear halve.
It falls off like a Eucharist.
I promise no redemption.
I promise no drop of water
for your parched tongue,
no sweat wrung from my button up.
I am a pool of non-excellence.
I am the border of your photograph.
Phone Sex
As far as he knows I am reaching for this,
and as far as I know he is reaching for that.
I touch my gold libido while fruit
rots in the kitchen. Together we smear
our personhoods until we exist in two
separate places. I’m learning about desire
and its off-axis gospel. I’m learning
to forget you and your impossible reciprocation.
I’m forgetting the smell of thyme on
your skin and the woman who loves it like I do.
I survive by forgetting,
and by voices of strangers coming elsewhere.
