Men, women & in-betweens hold

hands, walk too close, sport heels,

 

ass-out jeans, crew cuts & spurs

& cackle at will as you & I skip

 

into the bookstore. Our prize:

 

that treasure detailing the years before
his politics put Springfield on the map

& that silly top hat on his head, years
when he shared his bed with Joshua Speed –

 

whether because of tough times or a need
for companionship no one is certain.

But he did write him letters signed
Yours forever, & he did make room

in his presidential suite for David Derickson
when Mary Todd was away. She bore

 

Robert, Eddie, Willie & Tad & watched

three die before adolescence as Abe grew

 

more distant. No wonder she went insane!

you marvel as we meander past dildos & pornos

 

to HISTORY next to the register at the rear

of the store. We’re sure we’ll find him here.

 

But it’s just another biography that doesn’t tell

the rest of his story, our story. Buy it anyway!

 

you say, tracing each of my fingertips.

We set off marching with Abe to 17^th & M

 

in our own little demonstration, laughing

at how phallic the Big Dipper looks tonight,

 

knowing we’ll get to say I do

to whom we want one day. You

 

open the B&B door for me & laugh

as the lobby becomes catwalk. Mid-stride,

 

I look down, & in my arms, Abe’s eyes glint

against moonbeams & lamplight, seem sadder

 

than usual. I lose my balance & fall

against the elevator door, against you

 

waiting, holding it. You see what I can’t say

& grab my listless hand, swoon about you

 

& your woman, about Jason & me, our

bicoastal, piecemeal family, woven together

 

without pomp, by circumstance. Our

delicate tapestry unfolds as you lift

 

my T-shirt over my head & we slip

into bed, warm skin warmer now:

 

surer of its holy. Then, I envelop you,

rub your bald head & surrender to your visions

 

of a day when a femme stud like you,

like Sakia Gunn, can strut down any street

 

with their women or punks like me

without the specter of a knife, of a hand

 

with no love for the love it upends. When I call

that man who’s said he loves me for 102 days now

 

– a feat as unprecedented as believing

he & I will wed & raise the child

 

I want you & I to make – he doesn’t answer.

You hum bars of Atlantic Starr’s Always, shoo

 

the haints & omens in our commune, place my hand

on your belly, coo our waiting cherub to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

I live in a cocoon I’ve created.

I don’t feel a thing in my left hand

in here, but I used to feel everything

everywhere else more than most.

God said let there be irony & there was

I: fighting the good doctor & his forceps

on my coming out day. The preacher says

In all things give thanks, & I do.

 

Thank you, God, for this bum hand.

 

It’s nice to be able to hurt myself

& not have to take the blame.

Yesterday, I burned my ring finger

into a bloody mess. It’s been burning

for a studded companion for years.

Or at least I think it has. I can’t

be sure, but where I’m from,

I couldn’t marry who I want anyway.

The preacher says this desire

is unnatural. Gawd don’t make

 

Thank you, God, I’m unnaturally pretty.

 

I’ve felt this desire as long as I’ve not felt

my pinky, long before I broke it

doing exercises the good doctor

told me would help me feel again,

the one that’s still broken

because no one noticed & I’ve learned

it’s easier to let them forget, to sing.

I wish some pervert had touched me

when I was 6 or 17, then I’d have

someone else to share the blame.

Every Sunday, we sing Yes, Jesus loves me

to the children & I cry. I stopped asking

the preacher if his god loved me & my hand

years ago. I intuited early I couldn’t trust

his truths. Little Jeremiah’s eyes light up

every time I walk into the sanctuary.

 

Thank you, God, I’m not a pervert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My left hand jerks like a catfish, hooked but not

yet dead, all nerves. Must be the fever talking.

 

I scoot to the edge of the triage table, wince

as another electric shock shoots through it.

 

I only feel it when I’m sick. I should be sick

more often. I brace for another jolt, then another.

 

Daddy resists the urge to grab my hand

like he did as doctors sutured my forehead shut

 

when I was in third grade & two teens caught me

spying while they made out under the gym bleachers.

 

I hit my head on metal girders running away & didn’t

notice the heat blinding me was my own blood until I rushed

 

into the din of the game, into Mama’s arms & she spirited

me into the ladies room. At the hospital, Daddy promised me

 

two scoops of ice cream from Piggly Wiggly if I didn’t cry

while he squeezed my spasmic hand. On the ride home,

 

I savored the vanilla & strawberry milk until it left my limp

wrist a sticky mess. I think it enjoyed that sweet sting, too,

 

another blessed accident. Now, the nurse asks questions

nurses must ask, & I nod when she mentions the intruder.

 

Daddy bolts as though caught by his Holy Ghost, like the time

in church he felt himself about to lose himself & rushed

 

from the deacons’ pews for the door, quaking & gutted

but not quite gone. He collapsed mid-stride in the doorway,

 

his arms flailing out of my sight. I always have loved to watch

men carry on, loved to usher in the Amen corner on the women’s side

 

of the sanctuary, MaMary’s hands & lap within reach there.

I couldn’t break his fall. I watched his legs twitch, his brogans hanging

 

onto his heels, until he gave up the ghost, rider & ridden

no more. It’s always been this way with us, watching from afar

 

as the other falls over himself, possessed by something

in some holy face calling us away from our right minds,

 

our bodies, our manhoods’ limitations. When he bolts now,

I’m sure he’s going to finally make a run for it & get away,

 

not look back, like so many of those I’ve loved

say their fathers did, like they ran from me before they knew

 

what they were missing. He flops back into his seat,

grabs its sides, then crosses his arms & collects his fingers

 

into fists. He slams his eyes shut in prayer, shivering,

as if crossing a street in a windstorm, intent on making it

 

to the other side. O the blood … O the blood

… it will never lose … By the time I fill out the consent form,

 

he has opened his eyes. He lets out a long sigh, smiles, then laughs,

ears beet red, & places an open palm on my shoulder, then around it

 

to steady me as we walk to my hospital room. It’s OK, son.