The streetlamps made the leaves
black. The night
is a place of initiation.
Virgins get fed to it.
Beaches and ruins.
Skeletal buildings.
The trees were young
but the marble was old.
My jaw hurt.
I was young
but my dream was old.
A force
was galloping toward me.
I took a bus, a bus
with locked windows
to get here.
The thing I looked for—
I knew him by his beard.
My skin touched
by his mouth—
saliva, cooked meat, red wine.
Back home, the kids were cruel to me.
When I was happy
they called me
a faggot
to puncture that happiness.
I was holding a rope