(So you asked again why wasn 't I loved,
and the dark boys said
we had a torn shadow, how could we hJve been.)
Nights at the marina, thick with fishermen there,
their buckets full of pliant perch,
you can fly over the city,
see the rejected shadow, the him and the not-him.
Marlboro smoke makes pewter fences between the men,
beer bottles with paper bags bunched down
around the mouth-places,
and the shadows lie faithfully flat beside their owners
in the mediulII neither;
what could be darker than the male shadow at night
before it is plucked up by gulls, (, all
both of thelll)
~lI1d
dropped into the famous sea -
(So you asked again
how can I love if I was not
loved
and they said, you can lie down in your emptiness now
if you want to.)
At night the prison glows like the back of the Mona Lisa.
The men llIake sexual deals with each other.
The beautiful swagger" (as if that's bad)
the locomotive tattooed
on the back of another (as if that's bad)
the man bends
over
the sink spitting,
the hurt and the extra senses clouding his blood,
they want to televise his execution,
televise his f..lce as he slulllps down,
they show the picture of the Illan he killed,
he says he would do it again, over and
over.
Tom shadow,
dark boy,
darling, doomed male enerh,)"
you spoke well when you were young,
you blended in with the night
when they told you to; you acted strong,
so why didn't they. Why
didn't they love you.
