No One Follows You Home After the 4th of July Orgy
BY DANIEL BRENNAN
Bone bent out of shape by the bombs against your back.
You shuffle down the shadowed boardwalk,
still ringing with a body high, the sea-reeds stalking
in formation about you. The moon talks back,
scolding you, your skin riddled with cartographer’s notes;
men’s hands leave a mark on whatever they can.
You’re alone again. Lonely again. It’s always again. Can
you ever make these hungers more than just ghosts?
In the back of your throat are the words you keeping humming
to yourself in the dark: this is what I wanted. Anyone
could find you here, their fishbowl eyes pooled with longing
for more than the whiplash, the burn, the coming
and going in dark rooms where you can be anyone or no one
at all. Fireworks in chorus against your back. Siren song almost done.
Keepsakes
BY DANIEL BRENNAN
The stretch of their soft tissue
unimaginable, as all the best myths are. Our friend
describes their faces, the salt & pepper
stubble of one man, the jaw made
uneven by surgery of another, eyes
and lips and the pained expressions
as his fist slides inside them. He has them
all ranked and filed, these men, these
men with their immense hungers which I,
patron saint of squeamish doubt, cannot fathom.
Like a promise, or a lie, even, it is
all about the delivery; the coning shape
your hand must take as, bathed
in its appropriate lubricants, it enters
another body like parishioners
entering their house of worship.
My friend fists all kinds of men; daddies
with 2-bedroom bungalows in the Pines and
young finance professionals he’s cruised
at the gym and off-Broadway understudies
alike. I am jealous of my friend, and of these
men; not that I trust my body enough
to harbor such a kink, but I envy
that they know what they want, know
how to give it a name, to ask and
most assuredly (to our shock) receive.
His face takes on a fevered veil
as he tells us how it feels: to be
so close to the center of heat, pressing into
a body’s dire vulnerabilities, to feel
your own hand wrapped in wet warmth
like a newborn wrapped in a towel. He
is sole proprietor of this vice, the tight
lip of flesh surrendering; the names
of these men held in the back of his throat
like a keepsake When we laugh, it is
because we are cowards; we know that our bodies
lack the faith required to wield such palaces
within us, cathedrals welcoming
the wound fist of a God. My friend,
he discovers new pleasure
each night, and what has my disbelief
provided? Pained smile, stifled laugh,
soft well of an empty bed.
Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he’s in love, just as often he’s not. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Sho Poetry Journal, and Trampset. He can be found on Twitter @DanielJBrennan_
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