When I was a boy with braces
and only nine astonished hairs
sprouted from my pink nipples
I wrestled
in a bed
swirling with sweaty sheets
an angel
an incubus
a seraph
a fiend.
I pounded my palms against its pectoral planes.
Slid my hand between its corded thighs
seeking something hard as I was-
heat and hunger
dripped in my pits
and slicked my fingers.
Drunk with damnation,
breathless from my own locker room tang,
my eyes rolled up
a downward tug,
twist of muscles-
Christ on the cross,
boys bending,
the baseball star washing his car.
I chewed the pillowcase
dry with no release...
Today I look at boys and men--
hairy sheen, shanks and angles,
swinging joints and cleft surfaces--
the same way I look at
cardinals darting, gold finches flickering,
weeping willows and stoic oaks.
In the same way I look at
eggplants, onions, peppers and leeks
piled high in a hand-hewn bowl.
The craving has uncoiled
from my crotch, less hot
soaked my skin, settled in my marrow, filled my teeth.
I encounter in each body
hints of the blessing
for which I was wrestling
ridges and furrows
on the face of God.
-Mark J. Royse
June 2, 2000
