a light on
in the back of the house
pooling rain

safety pins
fastening my blouse
old family holiday snapshot

Postcard #3: Oscar Wilde Bookstore, New York City,
Christopher & Gay St., Sept. 2, 1998

My Polymorphous Fellow Travelers,

This postcard reminded me of your poster: "Navy Seals Blasted by Cold Water." I hid in your bathroom to study it, escaping the crowd at your party, titillated at the thickly muscled bodies, hard-pressed into each other's contours, each trying to find safe center of the scrum. Fleshly murmuration. (Could I confuse predators as part of a larger, multi-limbed body?) I'm still trying to find that "body electric" minus electrocution, minus the fire-hose blast of icy water — old queer Walt's "kissing lightly" and "being kissed in return."

stark naked
starling
without its flock

"Bellwether Bob"