^{after George Abraham}

My mouth is all wrong answers. I know what happens if
I speak & vanish the question marks on every slur.
I dream his lips against mine. Chapped. Red as an exit.

                                       ▼

I speak & vanish the question marks on every slur.
I dream his lips against mine, chapped red as an exit.
He still calls himself straight even after we fuck.

                                       ▼

I dream his lips against mine, chapped-red. As an exit
he still calls himself straight even after we fuck
& I vanish in his bed. Years later, I’ll prove him right.

                                       ▼

He still calls himself straight. After we fuck
in his bed—I vanish. Years later, I prove him right.
Unfaggot his past. The first girl to redden his sheets.

                                       ▼

I vanish in his bed. Years later, I’ll prove him right—
unfaggot his past. The first girl, I redden his sheets,
still, he calls me boy & my half-buried name.

                                       ▼

His unfaggoted past—the first girl to redden his sheets.
Still, he calls me boy & my half-buried name;
my body, always center stage. The subject of debate.

                                       ▼

Still, he calls me boy & half-buried. My name,
my body, always center stage, the subject of debate;
this is not a metaphor—though I wish it was.

                                       ▼

My body is always center stage, the subject of debate.
This is not a metaphor, though I wish it was:
the wedding band; that night; thin bruise of gold.

                                       ▼

This is not a metaphor, though I wish it was:
the wedding band—a night-thin bruise of gold
a promise we know we can’t keep making.

                                       ▼

The wedding band—a night-thin bruise of gold
promise. We know we can’t keep making
brides of each other nightly & divorcing in the sun.

                                       ▼

A promise: we know we can’t keep making
brides of each other nightly & divorcing in the sun,
we all know the score, one of these boys must die.

                                       ▼

Brides to each other nightly, divorced in the sun—
we know the score. One of these boys must die.
No one in this poem would even recognize my face.

September, 1984.
The heat was like a ray-gun.
The Communists had much to fear:
His name was Ronald Reagan—

and so was mine in middle school,
throughout the mock debate.
The recreation hall was full
of democratic hate.

I ended all my thoughts with well,
declared my love for Nancy.
My stifling suit was poly-wool.
I sounded like a pansy.

But teachers didn’t seem to care
that Ronald Reagan looked
a little fey, and had some flair.
I wanted to be liked,

the boy who mowed the neighbors’ yards,
the new kid in Ocala—
while Mondale read his index cards,
I sipped a Coca Cola

that I had spiked with Mother’s gin,
and frowned, and shook my head.
Oh Walter, there you go again,
I smiled and vainly said.

I reenacted getting shot.
I threw benign grenades.
I covered up what I forgot.
I never mentioned AIDS.

Boys do not kiss boys. They catch frogs.
Is what I told myself the second it happened.

& there we were, hidden in the hemlocks of a secret swamp.
Your lips drifting away from mine like a silent ship

leaving harbor. Gone, as quickly as it came. I watched the shame
leap into the pond of your face. O the ripples.

How good we were at turning moments into paper,
into things we could crumple up & throw away.

You grabbed the frog squirming in my palms
& headed to the “cave,” to the crack between the rocks,

where the black & white striped garter snake
slithered into shade. How I wish I could say

that I stopped you, that I didn’t watch unhinged jaws
spring out like lightning, wrap around that poor

& unsuspecting frog, but I did.
Still too young to believe it, I wanted to see it

gone, eaten, that green & slippery part of myself
buried in the belly of a beast.