June always simmers
like hallways on family holidays. Indoor, underground pools.
Dark swimsuits on dark hairy fathers.
Small motels in Clearwater Florida where there’s
little bits of plastic even in the rain.
Like any man half hoping will abuse
me in the stairwell.
Where I smell of coconut and damp, towel
under the door foul leak at your window
unit. A dirtied square of carpet everyone is trying not to look at
and the fireworks going off a few miles over.
Sometimes back then I could feel a shift in the wind a snake underfoot, roach in my hand and your tongue at whatever needs
watering.
greasy metaphor for something begging to burn.
Like ignition, baby! Like we’re finally
starting something here beneath the bleachers of a high school film set on fire
June thunderstorms on a Mardi Gras full of bruises anyway. A parade of drowning rats claw scabby bellies a daisy chain of empty beer cans falling like loose teeth wet concrete cobblestone horse shit and a hundred little uppercuts. the leaves a sour ache in the lower back. too many boyfriends with too many boyfriends too often kicks to the kneecap and four fingers on a numb. thigh bruising your jaw with a bottle of beer before i break it im biking though a foot of floodwater with a mouth full of blood and something dead right behind me.
its june in tampa its seaworld a teen birthday another faggot revelation hiding behind resort pool waterfall tempered glass hot steam cold skin pressed against it and pimpling youre seventeen youre so horny for distortion for being vaguely imperceptible a rushof amyl and chlorine burning holes in your brain a loosecigarette on the balcony and your first married man wet holding you how you will never be that naked again in his room of wall to wall aquariums how you can even now only touchingyourself under rippling light. How some tanks were empty and others full of eggs.
