I am a Luso-tropical lamppost.
I make them lurid, lascivious, lackadaisically just
like me:
so invitingly fecund,
and so ignorant of heterosexuality.
In ages past, it’s been all the same, really:
they can’t get laid,
they can’t get any;
tudu muleh busidu kung eli na isti korti kung sidadi.
Then it was a disorder, a disease.
Then it couldn’t be a family.
And now, it’s not appropriate for everyone to see.
So put a flower on it.
Flowers are, as far as I know, dealt with
acceptably;
why can’t a heterosexual man wear one, actually?
As long as we approximate some form of
meritocratic respectability—
it looks like the rain will fall in drizzles,
rather than in a torrent sea.
I suppose there really are reasons why we liked being called cheap.
And I am cheap;
I am so often for free.
I am so often a lightweight luso-tropical luxury
that you can put on the mantelpiece,
or even under the Christmas tree.
Still, thankfully,
you know I like it best
when I put you under me.
The rain only ever crumbles gently into the mouth
of an darkening equatorial dream.
Monsoons just flood the whole street.