POEM TO A MAN LEAVING HIMSELF BEHIND

POEM TO A MAN LEAVING HIMSELF BEHIND

As the plane taxiing out the runway,
a rainbow appeared right in front of the storm.
The plane’s red shark fins slice through the clouds,
as if to sever the rainbow for hope, for the gays,
for the artists, a rainbow for all of us.
Afraid of flying, you eat Mary’s brownies
I smuggled through security,
the plane was delayed and so we had a beer.
We are more than a little intoxicated,
chemicals within, chemicals without.
Last night I heard you whisper thank you for being there
as you turned out my light, kissing me good night
and then sleeping alone. It was not our time for love.
but the love is there nonetheless, yes the pull.
The heart wants what it wants.
Vins says you’re equally gay, I say equally straight.
But we kept kissing each other goodbye anyway,
your hand slipping down my back, skin against skin,
as you said, thank you for being my mother,
my sister, my grandmother, my brother, my...
stopping at the word that won’t rest easily upon lips.
I thought unrequited love was reserved for old plays.
Watching your plane rise, momentary smoke,
my heart in my throat, remembering the plane crash
I witnessed at the Bijlmer, and in Portugal.
Your plane pierces the sky, one moment a black dot,
another, gone forever. Will I ever see you again?
And I think of your fear of flying,
especially after the Dutch airplane disaster,
you said you didn’t want to be buried
in the hinterlands of Leissel,
you wanted to be among friends. And you said,
how lonely you are for no boys will sleep with you,
and the despair that you loved women too.
You get lost at the point between a woman’s breasts.
What I will remember is you rising up from the bath,
all brown and golden, a tawny feline,
something gorgeous to behold.
My eye grabbing that moment in time.
With your photography—the impulses in the moment of taking,
a thief of light, whereas mine is in the taking of images,
without film. A thief of memory.
These are the words of our lives.

1/7/93
SFO
First draft