xxvi-xxvii. Summer Style

xxvi.

As the days lengthen I grow impervious
And resilient against time.

Not like a mountain, which is pacified
By the wind’s conciliatory whisper,

But like a star that burnt out
Long before today

But which still blazons and bears
Across time to today.

xxvii.

An improbable but nonetheless accurate statement:
A gay bar is like a moonless forest.

Both, full of echoes and élan.
Both, where durable forms reiterate in corporation.

Both contain a fullness that binds the night
To no memory but duration.

A more probable but nonetheless accurate statement:
A gay bar is nothing like a moonless forest.

My step-father took us out once to shoot
A rifle at empty beer cans,

Which bulleted off a moldering log
Like a frightened quail.

My shoulder hurt for days
But I occasionally knocked a few cans over

And the forest collected the crackling gunshot
And held it like a reflection.

At a gay club I pick out guys that mimic
The look of my step-father.

They almost never dance with me.

And that’s how a gay bar is like a moonless forest.
Formless bodies broken only by the dawn.