A tryst.
That ends
in a nightly dose.
A contradiction,
emptiness
refused by starlight,
the dark
enflamed with error.
Tell me again
what crime you are
so guilty of?
The hot tub,
26 Seconal—
the moon
like ejaculate.
Delicate.
Poor
Barlow,
you felt
so alone;
you were
the only queer.
January 1, 1951.
In the semantics of
your translation
you intend, in Náhuatl
a long while,
to abandon
your cadaver.
There.
Copyright © 2019 by Miguel Murphy. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 15, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.