Resurrection Sequence
We summon the host of heavenly bodies.
Madonna. Lady Marmalade. Diana.
Summers. Set the lights in shades
of holocene: baby-blue and pink. Bright,
enough to convince ourselves
we’re stars in a coming-of-age flick
on MTV. This is the scene we forget
about the war on culture, and by culture
we mean love and decency. The scene
where mother calls us home
to dance and we pretend our feet
stand on something more solid
than the clay dirt floor of a Michigan
basement that flooded last summer
and still hosts the carcasses—
June bugs drowned in the season’s
heat. Shells still shining the same jade
of the eyeliner that sparkles across
the room at me. An invitation to put
arms around this shimmering body.
To feel the 12” single of Donna telling me
I Feel Love. To proclaim this declaration.
To play it on repeat.
Shanley Smith-Poole
A Suggestion for Gays
Something to do, when you are young:
Rent a cottage with a little lawn. Live in it
At least one summer, preferably in a place
Which has very hot summers.
The landlord will send a teenage boy
To mow the lawn. If you are lucky,
You will be at home and hear his whirr.
Go to the window. See if he has taken
His shirt off. Summon your courage
And go out with an offered glass of water.
Nothing else will most likely happen.
But you will smile at this when you are old
And may recall how
In college you rented another cottage
With a little lawn. A mower three years
Younger than you became a very close friend
Because he also wore no shirt. Their lithe torsos
Were both deeply tan. In neither case
Did you do them harm.
Nor they, you.
Jonathan Bracker
Spring
Rain across the lake
& cherry trees, bursting,
their blooms closed doors
in a dark house. April
breeds secrets: leaves
concealing gray sky,
the forest’s warrens
full of men, sweating,
behaving like rabbits.
Everywhere, the smell
of pear blossoms, inescapable:
wet mushrooms, wet
running shorts,
used condoms hanging
like white fruit
from every low branch.
Patrick Kindig
