SAGE

To the Straight Man Who Called Me Faggot Upon Finding Out I Was a Faggot

look under this azalea bush / see how there’s only
dirt & more dirt / it gets under your fingernails
like sticky sin in a cheap motel / like dry bourbon
on a harvest moon night when the blue wolf cries
& everywhere’s a bare naked lady strutting her
dyed green pouf / puffed chest nude for the night
wind blowing like a black wave over the shore
but with these slacks on I stand a decent chance
at scoring some major D / not the music sheet shit
I mean the real deal / new deal / cough up some coin
& you got a man for the night / in the end it’s skin
in the end it’s a mythology of touching / in the end
it’s a bare naked man under that bush / yeah that bush
& we make some sweet orchestral loving like the fire
will only ever scratch our feet / not scrape the soles
right out of our chests cuz in the end it’s all about
where I was when he died / it’s all about the sound
of rain put to a violin & that’s where he still lives
right there in that little body of strung up wood.