High Notes
are scarce in “Mooo!” but whatever,
Lover and I interpose wobbly E5s, bouncing
our sorry titties on his porch. Utter
chaos. It rained so long we’d forgotten
bare, sun-smooched bellies, cara cara
oranges rung up duplicitously as navels.
Trippy, I’m combusting
at 98.6 degrees—somehow still
a little chilly? Before Lover can protest
a neighbor’s noise-making lawn
care, I talk him into a walk around the park.
Birds flaunt their hollow bones.
Light slices wildgrass
ephemerally. On a bench, I smuggle
my head into Lover’s lap, his hands
in my beard, a banal diorama
for every straight passerby
trailing his stupid dog.
Happy Easter one says. Homophobe!
I sing just as liquid as any bird. Can’t I
also be milked dry? Oops, my nipple’s
slipping. Tomorrow I’ll be humbler.
Alphabet Mafia
Arguably the acronym was clunky anyway.
Better to throw bricks, or why not bedazzle BE GAY, DO
CRYING onto corduroy jackets? I came out late. Was raised by
dykes to watch out for, the whole lot of them
exquisite verbal processors, everyone I call
family tipsy at craft night, sharing dairy-free cannoli and hot
-glue guns. Mornings lost at the gym, afternoons to Grindr, though my only
hanky I keep on hand for seasonal allergies.
Intifada, intifada chants Leena on the bullhorn. No
justice, just us. Infinite
kinks: soft kissies, red butter
lettuce, limp wrists,
maximal glutes, the dissolution of marriage, a man’s
nose in my pits, and nuclear nonproliferation. Note: I myself identify as
otter for otter, aspirationally
polysecure (patience, please!),
queer as in congenitally
rollicking—the radio blaring in Russ’s minivan of
socialists en route to the club, the wind slapping our
transcendent faces. Oh, that hottie? Toast this,
um, unfortunately-mixed cocktail to
Violet, a survivor and very funny, insisting I squeeze her new tits.
We go to the mattresses! Ashes dumped on the White House lawn,
XXX tableaux on California kings. A choir of ecstatic
yawps. Join us by the fire. You, I mean. S’mores, smoke.
Zaddies lathered with bug spray, prattling on about the zodiac.
Kurt David is a public school teacher and unionist. His creative work has appeared in Foglifter, Gulf Coast, Split Lip, and elsewhere. He lives with his boyfriend in Lenapehoking/Philadelphia. For more, visit www.kurt-david.com.