There were little blue flowers
that rang when you touched them, he said,
and tasted like honey.
Then he stopped talking. Palm
fronds and eucalyptus. Grasses
rising, thickening as we walked—enough
for the wind to play with, enough to hide in.
Off the path, an island of trees,
men fucking some half-loved
boy in a black jockstrap braced against a tree—
seeing them before he did, I held my arm out
and he didn’t flinch so much as heel
like a hunting dog so graceful in its sport yet delicate.
Half-loved? Who came up with that?
Waves on black sand.
I said, It’s not far.
Click here to read Derrick Austin on the origin of the poem.
This poem is from Pangyrus’s poetry collection, What Tells You Ripeness: Black Poets on Nature, Edited by Nikki Wallschlaeger (available in our store).
Image: by Sixteen Miles Out, licensed under CC 2.0.
- The Groom Stripped Bare By His Bachelors - March 29, 2022