Wednesday, January 29, 2020

loverboi

1.

Lover, I do not know your name
Because I did not ask for it
A name is wrapped up
In the heart's asking
And we reserve our hearts
For the world outside of the
Brief joining of our bodies

Because what the heart asks for
Emerges not-in-between
The back and forth of our
Enduring Longing and

[the name does not enter here]

Fleeting Satisfaction

[the name may enter here]

2.

Lover, or more accurately:
Lover who is my approximation of Love's body

I hope that you are living
Outside of my body and
Living outside of your body because
The body refuses the asking of the heart

[the name as it enters]

Until it observes the asking among other bodies
Who ask the questions we dare not, and when
the asking is observed it causes something within your body and my body

[not quite Enduring Longing]

To unfurl darkly and shamefully
So as to avoid the body's hands and eyes
To hide among the interstices of the heart
Briefly detected as a dull ache
Present within each heartbeat

I know you know what I'm talking about because
We both remember the moment that that dark unfurling
Was given to us (because it was given to us)
By someone else (either your mother or father or some older boy
In your childhood and for that I am so, so sorry)

That silent wound that bends your knee in proposal
To ghosts of men who haunt your sex
We have both chased these phantom loves
Blinded by our velvet rage
Now do you see
How your past
Coils around my past and
Our futures begin
In that same frayed thread?

It ends in the same place too
A deathbed hallowed by 13 angels around
Your head and my head
When they whisper back the secrets of
Your longing and my longing--
Is that when your name will reveal itself
Written in the Book of Life
That only holy eyes may see?

3.

Lover, when will we stop playing these games?
It is our queer hope to exceed
The violence of this world
That violence that breaks
Your hold on my hand and
Sends you out the door.

How fucked is it that the game we play is one of survival?

Our bespoke love tailored in shadow.
Our love's light transfigured to refract
Our hidden shame.

4.

Lover -- if I could
I would ask your name and
Use its power to set us both free but
Instead we accept our sex and deny
Our yearning
Trembling, I coil myself around you
To invoke the not-in-between of
Your not-name through
Incantations of bastard's magic

One day we will know each other and
Someday, somehow, someone in a future time
Will know our names and
Speak of us fondly.

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