you are a pipe dream

Richard Siken, “Snow and Dirty Rain,” Crush (2005) // Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

[”We have not touched the stars, / nor are we forgiven, which brings us back / to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, / not from the absence of violence, but despite / the abundance of it.”

he presses one palm to the center of your chestsaying, here is the wound where the lightbleeds in. he never tries to pin you beneath himas if you were a starling meant for dust,

only holds you at night when you needhim to, lets you be the wild river of yourself.you cup his face in your hands. you the lyre-mouthed peasant king, he the echo of a prince,

dyed red by unthinking hands. he’s seen youwith giant’s blood under your nails, with myrrhdripping in the curls of your hair, with the lordrain-storming behind your human eyes,

& he is not afraid of the death-sharppoint of the lance his father hurls at his heart,nor missions where he wades alone upstream,dagger in hand. not afraid of you or this.

once, you massaged olive oil into his adolescentscrapes; now, by the firelight, as cherubimwatch through the reeds, he kissesyour wrists, sits up to look at you with damp,

somewhere far away the crickets singof the night’s heat, but oh, you are here,pressed against him among the olive trees,body to body, heartbeat to heartbeat.

he whispers, ‘it will hurt,’ with his dark handsin your dark hair & you laugh recklessly: ‘let it.’he whispers, ‘i will have to die,’ with his softlips on your soft throat & you shut your eyes.

'if you need me to do this, i shall.’ you oncethought long ago he was all divinity,no flinch to his blood, but you can feel himtrembling. 'i’m not afraid,’ you choke out,

'of any names they might brand onto me.’he grasps you tighter, saying, 'i choseyou. i love you. remember that.’ & what morecan be said beyond this? swallows may sleep

nested in temple eaves, but when he offersyou his mouth, he the holy altar made flesh,again, you never appreciated being awakequite this much. somewhere far away

THE GAY DANCE FLOOR, a composite blackout poem of three Washington Post articles on the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, for the first anniversary of the event, by Keaton St. James

“then, we became the wound pleading for the dead. /  the first moments were filled with dark. it’s totally different now. we’re all still grieving but underground the 49 names of the dead asked us  /  for real healing. so we returned to the gay dance floor, leaving candles and flowers for them.”