1999

altogether unaffordable — our dinner, the day
off, the risk of being seen up close

at a table, your foot in the crook of my knee,
hands only a little shaky. just barely

old enough to drive here to say this is my stop
as plainly as my mouth would allow

in public — i can't i'm scared they'll hurt us
— to take you home and find your mom

away for the night, to fall asleep one more time
watching sleet on glass through your hair in the dark,

bar soap and onion rings on your skin. a man
had been tied to a fence and beaten to death for less

than our meal, less than the warm liquid thrill of your breath
on my neck behind the bleachers at sundown.

people we loved and lived with thought maybe
he had deserved it. i didn't know yet how many 

years i would be made to live rough, walk outside
my own skin, beside myself, barely

tethered to this body. i no longer knew how to be
invisible to men and the men i knew took

no time to strike — i knew broken toes and broken
teeth like exhibits along the lip of the sink

and my mother's cracked spine and how i was made
to kneel to pray for a husband just like hers, all fists

and jesus —  i wanted you

full stop. the glowwarm ache of it. i wanted you
anchored in present tense, i wanted your

velveteen shushing mouth, i wanted you plashed
into seawater, goldwarm by lamplight, i wanted you

to have a good, long time. I did not say mistake
or wrong, only sorry and afraid. so many hands

had already found purchase on my body, love
seemed a reckless, impossible expense:

cleargold tea in heavy glasses, everything you told me
in confidence, in bed, in flawless handwriting,

everything i let slide away, slip under the hands
under shirts and notes passed underhanded

across back seats and under noses, under the past
tense. i wonder if that town knew

its only gay bar was an Applebee's, and yes, things have improved
a little more than we'd hoped then, hiding

in movies and empty parking lots, and we've both lived
to see it. anyway, i don't miss you as much

as i miss seeing you have what i wanted for you: your wide
dark eyes open to the sky, your persistence 

unabated, freefalling joy, the wild rioting cascade of you
loosened and sunlit, hands only a little shaky.