Under More Full Moons
by Jacob Selway
1.
We sat on the shore
of the always rapid and deep
river – me with my bag of lemons
and him
with an empty mouth
and empty hands and those eyes
and those eyes.
I gave him a lemon.
He took a bite, rind and all.
His chin coated.
His lips sticky.
We kissed
until my lips were sticky too.
2.
I think it was Abraham
who was gonna shoot Isaac
with a .44
and take him down to the Mojave
to bury him all wrapped in denim
til God said,
‘I’m just messin around.’
It must be Abraham too
who tightens his grip
around my already bruised neck
as he tells me that
I will go to hell for being a faggot.
3.
I will go to hell to hold your face rough with stubble
between my callused palms and bony fingers
as I kiss your right eye
and your left eye
and your sweaty forehead
and your salty lips with my chapped lips I will go
to hell for you to drape the fleece blanket of your body
over my pale blue body
just a few more times
I will go to hell so I can walk through my mother’s garden picking
bouquets of California
Poppies for you I will go
to hell for those flowers to die after just a week
all wilted and droopy
but you’ll still sniff them
and claim they’re just as fresh as they were back in the garden
I will go to hell for the back seat of your car lit only by the full moon
I will go to hell for you to
disrobe me
and fuck my ass
with my legs gripped around your spartan waist
I want to see your crucifix
eyes that bathe me in a hot spring
I will go to hell to kiss the holy skin of your bare chest
as you hold me to sleep every night I will go to hell
for Jesus’ apparent unforgivingness
and God’s disdain
for sweat dampened sheets under us intoxicated men I will go
galloping naked and sticky with your saliva
to hell under more full moons
4.
I will fall like Lucifer to hell for the sin that is to share
a vanilla milkshake with two straws and a spoon
in the dark corner
of a dying cafe where windows
have only been planks of wood
and the tiled floor is chipped crawling
with butterflies and moths that all have holes in their wings,
for the sin that is to believe that children deserve parents who have hands to feed them
and parents deserve unburned babies
asleep without nuclear drones lurking
silently as supernova stars in the night sky,
for unionist communist revolutionaries and conservative evangelical
grandma of the south
with her cornbread and stuffed potatoes
that have just come out of the oven for us,
for the lady in a thick knit scarf who sits at the iron table feeding
peanuts and noodles to squirrels
who then come up to me and beg
for my pocketful of pistachios
which I give to them as holy communion
and they receive as holy communion,
for the burrito with french fries in the middle that I buy down the street
from the wax
museum of past presidents
which has weeds that grow
through concrete floors,
for the mission church that just restored its stained glass mosaics
of unkempt saints holding babies at the waist
where Jesus wants our American dollars,
for standing on graves, for living on graves, for eating on graves, for
praying at graves,
for yearning sunflower men and women who only turn toward the architecture
of endless suburbs
where they can kick in their own doors
and lick the construction dust
off their waxed shoes,
for the artist who has only a single piece of paper and no red paint to eat,
for the men who wash the feet
of other men who are delicate stone,
for protests against the ringing gongs of fascism, for destruction
of unlimited banks who eat
with their tentacles
and their mouths filled with millions of teeth that all have two eyes and receding hair
the same mouths that stretch
from Newport to Boise to Fresno,
for the chocolate bar that sits on the cracked sidewalk melted by the amber stop light,
for the ball of yarn that sat unused
that is all colors
but now is locked inside the moon,
for the man
who walks in circles
on the amphitheater stage
shouting gospel of marshmallows roasted by the fire of artificial intelligence,
and for the ringing in my ear that is slowly going away.
5.
Let there be an army of Lucifers who are
all me all pale all blue all dying
to go to hell for a lemon.