I light ‘em up, in the heat of the day,
and under the quiet eyes of the night;
no one else I know has the face and cheeks
of sun-kissed, straits-soaked sunshine
that I have. And I’m a little special, a little out of line:
I wear my heart on my breast, my traumas on my chest,
and everything else I have borrowed from spacetime.
And what is on loan? Just a little harnessing
of sexiness, and strength, and a bit of that particular
Kristang raunch dressing
just so that my poems taste like nothing else you will ever find in this dimension, barring
your own ability to take it all off in front of the superior,
and subaltern your sense of fear
into what needs repairing.
And what needs a fix? Everyone, if we were to speak the truth
about ourselves, and everything we forsook
to get here, to lie without fearing
what will happen to our psyches, and what else we are stirring
up, when we take away all the gay
and only learn to dance when they say
jump. Tumble.
And get fucked over, by the rubble
of what once was an economy that seemed to brook no trouble.
I like the way your whole body shook as I fumbled
with my belt buckle, and grinned, and lit up a chuckle
for the whole world to see, bittersweet and rueful:
I only have clothes on when you want me to be humble.