POEM: Fighting Fire, by Michael Montlack

I first felt it that afternoon in your family room
when you offered me your toy chest's newest claim--
the red plastic bullhorn, a miniature of your fireman father's,
a birthday gift for his only son:
Ten years old and nearly half my size!

Go on, take it! your voice projected,
the hollow horn's mouth aligned with your own
like a kiss I could see inside,
one that amplified some unspoken urgency,
a pre-adolescent emergency:
my own inner fire.

Really, take it, you said. He can get me another.

Were you casting off some hand-me-down
or trying to please me, your new pal?
I worried and wondered
if all my desires were as easily sensed.

I didn't want someone else's present.
What I wanted was that kiss.
I was just scared
someone might hear.
So I buried it one night in my backyard
and prayed for your father's forgiveness
then swore I'd never again take
a gift I was not ready to accept.

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide (Nov 1, 2007)
COPYRIGHT 2007 Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc.
Copyright 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Poem: Waxy & Battered (ef)

Waxy and battered - weary we return
Television sparks and invades the room
Done skiing - spent with numbness & burnt by snow
A shortcut across the years, back to Maine
Single-pane storm-clouded windows
Heaving with frost & heavy plastic
Thoughts swathed in so many layers
Flying wild into the wind, then avalanche
We cut trenches across the plainness

Until our legs, arms & lungs surrender
This is the art of retreat:
The warmth of a hot shower, catnap,
Belly-filling meal & tannic, sating wine,
Sleep-inducing sex.
A wish you'd been in my deeper past.

03.01.08 ef