CENTAUR
For months
you’ve only let me know you as
Jihad or Blessed
Bookworm 9/11
Your Grindr pic not a jpeg punned
on
By what’s
coded through either alias
Into a base motherboard of longing—
Slender is the night—yours not a
cyber face
Faked, but a coy faun’s ass
tipped in its place
Smooth and clefted, cropped as
rosy cheeked, ringed
With pixels about a saint’s—“Head,
I mean”
—“A halo?” you echo, when we
connect
Turning your back to me as you
elect
To drop your jeans, confirming
with still lean
id,
my flight-risk golden hind, who you are
Not retouched: shy beast startled
but unscarred.
John Barton has published eleven books and seven chapbooks of
poetry, including three of the latter with above/ground press, the most recent
being Reframing Paul Cadmus in 2016. We
Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs,
Manifestos is forthcoming from Palimpsest in 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment