Jean Jacket Goes Cruising

“I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle” (Nahum

3:6)

I was summer and scandal. I craved. I caved.

Flocks of men fell to their knees at my worship,

desire tensing their necks. My beautiful boys.

My sin, my gin. I mastered men’s bodies that year,

learned that want and fear both hammer the throat

to screams, how every time a man orgasms

an alien gets its wings. It was the one I could have loved

who fisted me holy. The lens of his looking

and the flash of his camera mouth pulled my name

from my chest while my gums pulsed

another man’s blood. I was terror incarnate;

a carnation of terrors bloomed

where his touch might end. I unfurled angelic.

I bore my teeth. Beautiful as my loneliest dream.